Keith needs steroids

At the moment, I'm being flooded with error message upon error message from my printer (which is perilously close to being thrown through a wall. Or at least thrown towards a wall. It's a pretty big, wide-format printer. I'd need steroids to throw it through the wall).

Anyway, before I tear my hair out, it seems an ideal time to distract myself with the weekly blog post for The Switch.

Tom and I appeared together last weekend at Mighty Con in Missouri. While there, we shot some video for the behind-the-scenes documentary all the kickstarter backers will receive. The docu is Tom's project, I really don't know what it's going to be like any more than any of you do. It's probably a safe bet that there will be bikini girls in it, knowing Tom. All I know is that a couple of times, I looked up from sketching at the convention (or working on Green Lantern in my hotel room at night) to find Tom filming me. 

It's just as creepy as it sounds. 

I'm from Connecticut, where we don't even look at each other as we pass one another in the street. So I was caught off guard by how friendly the people of Missouri are, so much so that I broke my own rule about shaking hands with strangers at conventions many times. You're almost guaranteed to get sick and sure enough, I've been cursed with the plague this week. I'm finally starting to feel human again, thank Dayquil, just in time to drive up to Worcester, Mass tonight for Massive Con this weekend. If I see you there and don't shake your hand, don't be offended. Just say thanks. I'm done with conventions until November after this. 

In the meantime, our plucky pal Tom is down in Knoxville, Tennessee at Fanboy Expo. He's pulling double duty as the celebrity photographer and a comic book guest. So if you get a picture taken with William Shatner or The Dukes of Hazzard, that's Tom behind the camera. Enjoy him, he's a national treasure.

In the meantime, between all these conventions and plagues and the such, we've continued to plug away at The Switch. The script is complete (although I continue to tinker/fine tune dialogue for the second half) and Tom is producing some beautiful pages. I'm happy with the story; I feel like tonally, it takes a reader on a full roller coaster ride of emotion, all the highs and lows of Electricia/The Switch's journey. I'm anxious for all of you to get to read it.

Anyway, here's some art to hold you over until next week. This page features Kickstarter backer Christopher Gerber in panel two.

 Hope everyone is doing well out there lately!

Thanks,

Keith

Update #13 (Tom)

I'm typing this update from the airport as I prepare to meet Keith in St. Louis for St. Louis Comic Con this weekend!  So come on by and get your autograph from the Switch creators, maybe even a print ;)

Here's another sneak panel from The Switch, with Electricia in full rage mode!

Keith and I love getting fan art, so here is Knoxville area artist Joey Gossett 's cute take on Electricia: 

We'd love to have a print of this!  Anybody can send fan art to us, we'll post it here!  And here is Joey sporting a Switch shirt:

Since this weekend will be the first (but not last!) time Keith and I will see each other since we created The Switch, we'll be filming some behind the scenes stuff for the downloadable, 1-hour movie that you Kickstarter backers will receive! ;)  Until next week....

A little color (Keith)

I'm in the middle of a super-hectic day so this won't be the most in depth blog post of all time. Still, anything is better than nothing. At least that's what I usually tell myself when I look at my 401k.

Anyway, you might remember this page from the Kickstarter campaign, Tom and I had it posted. But here it is for the first time with the flat colors filled in. Flat coloring is just pretty much basic colors without any rendering; it kinds looks like 80's comic book coloring. I've been doing the flatting on the project and, while it's a bit tedious, I am enjoying learning a lot about the coloring process in this day and age. FUN FACT: my first professional gig (aside from background inking) was as a colorist at Valiant Comics in the early 90's. I was only there briefly, I decided to return home for the summer instead of staying in Jersey where I was living for school at the time but I remember coloring with watercolor dyes onto photocopies of the original art.

Coloring is a little different these days, what with photoshop and all. 

So from here, Tom will eventually take this page and do the color rendering and special effects and add all the bells and whistles that he does so well. 

Next week, Tom and I will be in Missouri kicking off our Switch tour at Mighty Con. We're both travelling on Friday but one of us will get the blog updated regardless. If you're in the area or at the show, please stop in and give us a hug.

See you soon!

Keith

Update #11 (Tom)

Howdy.  Tom here.  Before I begin, I'd like to thank Keith for taking over for last week's update while I was out with a freak/severely strained neck injury that prompted me to go to the doctor.  I'm in better condition now (thanks to all on my social media for the well wishes--really made my week!) and can get back to being more active and productive again (I was very much bedridden for most of the past week or so).

Last time Keith showed you a little of his writing process along with one of this page layouts, and contrasted it to my own layout.  I'm just as fascinated with how he sees things in his mind's eye as he's writing.  Being an artist himself, his vision is not to be discounted.  Sometimes our layouts will end up very similar, sometimes quite different as you saw.  There's really not much of a rhyme or reason; usually I don't even see his layouts.  So that is a good reason why there's a difference.  Differences in how artists see things can be for a variety of reasons which I won't bore you here.  The point is that Keith just goes along with whatever I put down because he's just that easygoing.  Or too trusting.  Or a sucker.

Anyway, since Keith already kind of spilled the beans with a sneak peek at one of the pages, I thought I'd give you guys another peek at that same page, this time in a more advanced stage:

That's me inking at a restaurant because I am that dedicated!  By the way, this is one of many clips that will be incorporated into the 1-hour Switch behind-the-scenes movie that all you awesome backers will receive ;)

In two weeks, Keith and I will kick off our Switch tour in St. Louis for St. Louis Comic Con!  He and I are trying to see if we can do something special for Switch fans that weekend.  Hope to see you guys there!