Jason Shasteen Design

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SQUAWK!  sorry…I couldn’t resist.  This was a fun panel to work on and I had some fun with the lettering too.  I even used a ultra fine point pen to add some texture and style.

Below

I really like how this shot turned out.  Good News Too…I finished the strip that these entries helped develop, so I hope to post the new strip tomorrow night!  I think it’s the best I’ve done yet, and I am finally doing the quality of work that I feel at the level I wanted to get to…..for now atleast.

Background

I envision this shot having a very beautiful view in the background, but I just did a treeline for now.  The finished color version should have an awesome sunset in the background.  Even though the figure in the foreground should grab your attention, I would hope the view in the background would pull you further into the shot.

Above

I did remember to take my pens home today.  However, I actually inked this blue line sketch while I was at lunch with my friends from work.  This is the 3rd panel of an 8 panel comic strip that I am doing at work.  I am using a digital approach for the actual comic that will be published online, but I decided to still use the blue line sketches as reference.  I also decided to use my zebra pen to practice some more inking over the sketches.  I think in the future I will probably go straight to creating my blue line sketches digitally, but I’m glad I tried this approach too.  The shot for this panel is suppose to be a bird in a nest in a tree above the two characters who are looking up at the bird.  I Especially enjoyed putting the line pattern on the branch of the tree.

Front and Center

I managed to leave my set of pencils at the office today.  So this piece was done using a random mechanical pencil and my finger to add some smudging.  After taking a picture of the sketch, still working on my scanner, I decided it needed something more.  I played around with it in photoshop, but decided to keep it in somewhat of a grayscale for now.  I was intending for this piece to be a “background” excercise, but I believe it became a “front and center” example.  It actually reminded me of a much darker piece I did back in college.  Glad to see that now I am drawn to drawing things of hope and wonderment, not that I won’t experiment with darker themes as well at some point.  Anyways, I had a blast with this and I hope you guys enjoy!

This week I took the time to do a storyboard before I just jumped right into doing my strip.  The week before, I came up with a template for planning out the flow and type of the script.  I started with sketching out the panels, but then tried redrawing the sketches with my wacom tablet over the originals.   I have to admit I liked the new approach…especially trying to establish the color tones and contrast of each shot.  In the end, I had a very cool black and white version of my soon to be full color strip for the week!  Hope you enjoyed a little behind the scenes of my process thus far!