Chapter 4, Milestone 2 reached!

Today I've finished the second milestone of the Chapter 4 final artwork production. It was a huge milestone with nearly 70 hours of work that went into it. I anticipated that because I've got some pretty big and detailed backgrounds in this one. That's fine, I'm only 4 days behind schedule which will most likely be compensated by the next three milestones which are all interiour scenes and threfore will be much more easy to illustrate.

I'm totally in adventurer mode now. There has been one specific panel in this milestone that perfectly illustrates my feelings:

Jonas having fun exploring the ruined city of Ankal Aasha

I simply love the setting Jonas explores in this chapter and in my mind I'm right behind him climbing the overgrown ruins of Ankal Aasha. I can literally feel the humidity in the air and the bright sun shining on my face (it's raining since weeks here in Germany by the way...) And just to share my joy with you I'm going to be extra generous with preview images today. Enjoy!

deeper into the jungle

what will our heroes find in the jungle city?

Excerpts from some larger panels

In milestone 3 I will now enter the realm of Janaka Jiiva inside the ruins which I can't wait to explore. And slowly we're coming closer to the release of the chapter which is still scheduled for the end of August. So, you just have to wait a little bit longer until you can follow Jonas on his adventure!

Finding Gossamyr Variant Cover

It has been a while since I've posted artwork that isn't Wormworld Saga related. Today I want to show you one of the very few freelance jobs that I've worked on in the last 12 months. When David Rodriguez contacted me to commission a variant cover for the first issue of "Finding Gossamyr" I was hestitant at first. A job like that was going to take several evenings for me to finish and take away from my Wormworld Saga time. However, when I had a look at the story I knew that I wouldn't be ableto turn down the job.

"Finding Gossamyr" tells the story of autistic boy genius Denny and his caretaking sister Jenna. In order to get a scholarship at a renowned institute, Denny is challenged to advance the solution of an ancient theorem which has never been solved. The theorem happens to be the key to a dimensional portal behind which an evil empire awaits to enslave any civilization that is foolish enough to open it. In order to prevend a catastrophy, Denny and Jenna have to travel to Gossamyr, a fantastic world in which math unleashes magic and where Denny hence becomes incredibly powerful.

David Rodriguez' writing is sensible and the story is well paced. The autistic little boy and his overstrained sister are great characters and the first issue leaves you wanting more. I'm a big fan of Sarah Ellerton's artwork which is very painterly and makes great use of the dramatic qualities of light. Sarah was among the first fellow web comic authors who sent readers over to the Wormworld Saga (from Phoenix Requiem) when the first chapter was published and I'm very happy to be able to contribute to this extraordinary comic project that is "Finding Gossamyr". If you like the Wormworld Saga you will definitely enjoy it.

And if you are into collecting comics and also happen to be attending San Diego Comic Con, go and visit Th3rd World Studios at table M-13 in the Small Press Section. They'll have about 20 issues of "Finding Gossamyr" with my variant cover over there and I was told that there exists a total of only 100 issues of it. So, get one as long as they are available!

To wrap things up, here are my initial color sketch and the preliminary drawing of the artwork:

Chapter 4, Milestone 1 reached!

Today I reached the first milestone of the Chapter 4 illustration process. I actually went a bit over 20% because I added an extra panel into this milestone to make up for the fact that the chapter title takes up the space of a big panel without causing any extra work.

I'm wearing a Fedora in the illustration above because one of the soundtracks I was constantly listening to on this first milestone was "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". I love this film and especially the soundtrack. Chapter 4 will lead us into the sunken city of Ankal Aasha and I think that this film still has a big influence on the way I envision this place. Not exactly because the locations look similar but in the way the film itself looks and feels. When I think about it I see brown greens and a lot of warm light. Or maybe it's just what the film has tranformed into inside my brain over the decades. If I watch it again it's likely to look totally different.

Anyway, here are two artworks from the first milestone. The first one is a small portion of the large first panel which I won't spoil for you by showing it completely just yet:

In the second one you can see that we meet new characters in Chapter 4. Well, I figure that this isn't big news anyway...

On another note, a few days ago I hit the mark where I was working full-time on the Wormworld Saga for a full year. Last year around this time I had quit my job in the computer games industry and started to work at home. I already had a huge blog post prepared for this occasion but I decided to not post it. It felt forced to me. There surely has happened a lot of stuff in the last 12 months and some of these things might even be worth talking about. However, the most important thing can be said in a few words: I'm still working full-time on the Wormworld Saga and currently I'm planning to do this at least until the end of the year. The really interesting steps, which will have a huge influence on the future of the project, are still lying ahead and I'm looking forward to find out how things will turn out.

On to the next milestone!