Production Art For Reals

Last week we goofed somehow and it didn't seem like people were able to see the sneak production images that Keith posted up.  So for this week I am reposting them along with another sneak peek of art from The Switch.

The lettering process has begun, and it's very satisfying to me to see the fully finished, colored pages as they roll in.  I'm still pinching myself that this is happening!

This weekend I'll be in Southaven, MS for Delta Fan Fest to hawk my art and of course to promote The Switch.  I hope to meet some of you there if you're in the area.  In the next few weeks Keith and I will be cooking up yet another exclusive Switch print--once that I pencil and he inks.  This will be for our upcoming appearance in Minnesota for Comic Card show.

Page 1 pencils

Inks.  Do you notice anything different?

Keith's flats

My final renders.

And a sneak preview of Lover Boy making himself comfortable.

catch the rainbow

Tom and I are both swamped this week so excuse me for just throwing a little art your way and then vamoosing back to the drawing board. I thought you might find it interesting to follow the progression of page one from black and white inks to my flat colors to (seen for the first time) Tom's fully rendering coloring. This is a production blog after all, so have a little production!

We'll see you next week! Thanks for your attention, as always.
Keith

Hey everyone, sorry for the late-ish blog post today. I've had a busy day with physical therapy and then racing the clock to get some Justice League work turned in before the long weekend.

As Tom mentioned last week, we were both blown away by the positive reaction and support over our publishing agreement with Dynamite. About the most negative comment we received was that it was weird to announce the publishing delay so close to the time the book was supposed to ship but honestly, we couldn't announce before the deal was done and the process took about four months from starting the conversation to signing the paperwork. Once we were clear to share, we did.

There were some individual questions that I'll reply to shortly but one backer suggested an idea that I liked: a fan art variant cover. We don't have the resources to print a second variant cover (we have the Doug Mahnke variant already lined up) but it's possible we could squeeze a couple of pages of fan art into the actual Switch hardcover. So if anyone wants to submit some fan art, by all means send it over and we'll try to get some of it in print.

This week, I thought I'd share some of Tom's lovely efforts. First up is a convention poster our little buddy designed featuring The Transient, Electricia, Dr. Hate and The Moss. This one made the rounds on Facebook so apologies if you've already seen it. It's worth sharing again though...

And secondly this week, Tom's design for a new villain we haven't shared yet. This is CROM, an evil barbarian God who is a member of Murderer's Row. I didn't throw one of my crappy character designs Tom's way for this one, he just ran with it. I dig the mustache the most.

And that's about all the news that's fit to print! See everyone next week. Thanks for reading!

Keith

And "The Switch" Graphic Novel WIll Be Published By....

Welcome to The Switch's new home!

Last week, Keith confirmed that a publisher has indeed picked up our successfully-funded Kickstarter graphic novel The Switch.  As if you can't tell by now from the opening picture, I can now safely and proudly say more publicly that it will be Dynamite Entertainment!  Keith directly briefed our direct backers earlier in the week via our Kickstarter page (you can find out the gritty details there).

In short, the great news is that with a backing of Dynamite's caliber, it shows their confidence in our product, and they will help us reach a much broader market!  This was actually one of our goals after we would have finished/shipped The Switch ourselves--to try and give it a second life via a another publisher.  Keith and I have actually had a history with Dynamite, having done work on a 4-issue miniseries of the return of the 80s cult classic Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters back in 2007.  I've also illustrated a cover for Army of Darkness around that time as well.  So we really couldn't be happier at this stage already.

ARBBR created by the great Don Chin

The only major downside is that it won't be published until Spring of 2017.  To help make up for this, Keith and I will be bumping up the page count to 90 of our story.  We have stated from Day 1 that we owe it to our supporters to be as transparent as possible, that we won't be one of those Kickstarter projects that will take the money, run, and disappear.  So far, we haven't received any complaints about this announcement.  In fact, the comments we have gotten so far have been very supportive and understanding.  That's our fans/friends for you.  We love you!  And we thank Dynamite mastermind Nick Barrucci for his faith in us, and for working with us (again!).  The ride has just begun...

And now for more teaser artwork from The Switch:

Have a drink, it's time to celebrate!

Moss being a bad-ass.

One of my favorite characters to draw, Dr. Hate.

Mystery Publisher Official.

Hey everyone, welcome to another week of behind-the-scenes Switch-ness! My name is Keith, I'll be your guide for this week's update.

So it's been a big week for Tom, myself, and The Switch. It was mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we had pretty much come to terms with a publisher for this project. Over the last couple of weeks, we finished our negotiations and this week, Tom and I signed the contracts and made the deal official. We're both pretty excited about it and feel that it will enable us to bring this graphic novel to a much wider audience.

I'd imagine some of you might be curious who the publisher is and how this new publishing arrangement may change the shipment date of the book, if it effects your rewards etc.

If you'll bear with us a few more days, I feel the fairest way to address all of those details is to send out a proper production update to all of our kickstarter backers first (not everyone that backed the project reads this blog.) That way, no one will miss anything important and then, if there's anything I haven't covered or you guys still have any questions, that gives you time to shoot them over and we'll address them in next week's blog. I hope that sounds fair enough to everyone.

In the meantime, here's some art from Tom this week to hold you over. These are excerpts from a convention poster he's been designing and will also probably be in the adult coloring book that's coming as a digital reward. If anyone wants to take a crack at coloring these in photoshop, have a good time. We love when everyone gets involved.

See you guys in a few days with a general update and we'll be back next week!
Keith

New Character (Kind of...)

Tom here, and I'm back with another Switch update (and thanks to Keith for filling in the last few weeks; but what else is he gonna do--he's a gimp!).

Keith kind of hinted/previewed a character a few blogs ago about an alien astronaut called The Transient who will make his debut in The Switch graphic novel.  As you have seen, Keith will sometimes do a sketch of his ideas whether they be layouts or character designs, and then pass them on to me to do as I please.  Sometimes I'll add/modify those ideas (as you will see here), and other times I'll leave them basically the way Keith envisioned (a la Switch character--not Electricia).  And other times yet I'll completely ignore Keith's visual suggestion altogether and go, "I bet I can do this thing even worse!"

Here I'm proud to show off my refinement of The Transient.  And I'm happy to say that The Transient is based off of backer supreme Matt DeAngelis:

Matt seems to enjoy wearing shades!

I especially liked Keith's boot idea and rocket pack idea.  Although Matt's character looks very humanoid (he's supposed to be alien), he will no doubt have alien abilities and probably alien skin color.  The overall color scheme from Keith's design will remain.

Next time I post, I will show more interior page goodness ;)   Thanks again for peeking, and big ups to Matt!

The Truth is... (Keith)

Hey guys, forgive me for the late blog posting today. Tom asked me to fill in earlier but I had a small setback with my broken leg and couldn't get it until now. 

Anyway, I thought I'd share a random page of script from close to the halfway point in the book. Not sure why I picked this page, maybe because it doesn't contain any big spoiler moments or maybe because it gives us a small glimpse of the hero side of the equation in this book. Hope you dig it and we'll be back next week with a more substantial blog post.

Be well, everybody!

PAGE THIRTY-SEVEN

PANEL ONE

Close on the face of THE TRUTH. Stern. Staring directly out at the reader, her eyes surrounded by glowing Kirby-crackle.

TRUTH: You might as well stay DOWN.

TRUTH: It's not gonna go any better for you once TRANSIENT arrives.

PANEL TWO

Pull back to reveal that The Truth is standing, hands on hips, in front of LOVER BOY, INTERSTELLAR, and NASTY CAT. The three villains have been beaten pillar to post; they're sprawled out, bruised and bloodied.

Interstellar should be unconscious, primarily so he can't teleport them out of there. Cheap writing, yeah, but sometimes cheap writing makes sense.

By the way, we're on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Lots of damage as a result of the battle including, most importantly, GIANT GLOBS OF GREASE spattered all over the area, including our villains.

NASTY CAT: The little whore killed GREASETRAP! She--

LOVER BOY: Shut up! I need to concentrate.

PANEL THREE

Lover Boy, standing amidst the rubble and globs of grease. His eyes are glowing.

LOVER BOY: Easy, Truth. Listen tight.

LOVER BOY: After you let us go, throw yourself off the observation deck and plummet to your death.

LOVER BOY: Please and thanks.

PANEL FOUR

A blast of energy from Truth's eyes puts Lover Boy down for the count.

TRUTH: You're welcome.

TRUTH: Murderer.

PANEL FIVE

The Truth whirls to face Nasty Cat. The arc of her cape and the trail of energy from her eyes tracks the motion of her body.

She looks absolutely FIERCE here.

TRUTH: I haven't forgotten about YOU, Nasty Cat...