Classic strip re-drawn today. A couple of differences, mainly that I changed the ram’s name from Bill. Not really sure why I bothered though. Sadly, this is the first and last strip featuring Dodge Ram. Way to take one for the team, Dodge.
Two strips a week for two years of your two favorite comic dinosaurs. That’s what today marks. April 8, 2014 means there are more than 200 Moth & Ethan strips available for your reading pleasure. Not too shabby. Happy anniversary to us.
That being said, we have some news to share involving a minor change. Don’t get upset. There are plenty more installments headed your way. However they will only be posted once a week.
For the foreseeable future, Moth & Ethan will be uploaded on Mondays. We’ll keep reminding you, so don’t worry.
The objective is to allow Andrew some time to stay ahead of his work schedule, and be able to focus on some other projects that have been sorely neglected. This webcomic is still a priority, and certainly isn’t going away, but hopefully this means that you’ll be seeing some other exciting announcements arriving soon.
Thanks so much to you, the faithful readers, who make Moth & Ethan a part of your day. This past year has seen a dramatic increase in subscribers, comments, and Facebook and Twitter followers. The word is spreading, and it’s because of you! We hope you’ll stick around and continue to share us with your friends and family.
Blessings.
A.R.C.
It’s official! We finally have a real domain name (at least one that is easier to remember). Tell your friends to look for moth-ethan.com !!
I thought I would take this time to include a brief blog about the process I use to bring you new Moth & Ethan strips every week. Right or wrong, love it or hate it, every artist has a method and technique that they are comfortable with or are constantly honing to produce their craft. This is one of mine:
I use a 11" x 17" 100 lb. Accent Opaque Digital bristol board with a smooth finish.
I buy this in large packs at Arvey or Xpedx.
This laminated template gives me a rough guide for placing the panels.
I made the template so I wouldn’t have to measure every time.
I sketch in the cartoons and concept dialogue with a 0.5mm mechanical pencil.
I don’t usually render the drawings any more than this since the characters are pretty simple and familiar to me.
Inking the cartoons and letters with a variety of pens, including brush markers, Sharpies, Rollerball, and felt-tip pens. And "yes", I ink from right to left since I am left-handed.
Older classic Moth & Ethan strips were inked with brush and India ink. Brush markers, while less sophisticated or opaque, are also not as messy.
Quick clean-up with kneaded artist erasers.
Some artists avoid this kind of clean-up by inking over a light table on a separate sheet, or just inking digitally.
Move from the drawing table to the computer workstation.
I am currently running a new generation Mac Mini, to which I’ve connected a 12″ Wacom Cintiq, and new Brother large-format scanner, both of which are tremendous time-savers.
Scan the inked drawings at 300dpi in Black & White.
Black & White or Greyscale images scan faster and make it easier to adjust the levels.
I crop and rotate the scanned images in Photoshop, then save them as memorable PSD files. The Brightness & Contrast usually has to be adjusted. I also change the flat Background to a Layer and set it to Multiply. After that, I convert the image from Greyscale to RGB, and add two more layers beneath that line layer.
This is also the point where I digitally clean up the inks and fix mistakes or make changes – a common occurrence..
Finally, I add the background and foreground colors on the separate layers, and Merge the Visible Layers together before saving the PNG file at a reasonable screen resolution.
Selection tools, Paint Bucket, and Brushes are all used to fill in the colors. I also have a color palette specifically for Moth & Ethan and a few of the other characters.
That’s about it! Hope you weren’t too bored and I hope it doesn’t take away the “magic”. Feel free to ask more detailed questions via e-mail or in the comments section below.
