A bicycle kicking tabby cat

/

I worked late to day at my contract job, which left me short of time to work on my book. Rather than post the rough background painting I worked on for a few minutes, I want to post this picture of Tabby Cat doing a bicycle kick. I wanted to work this picture in the book, but I realize, no matter how much I like it, that it doesn’t advance the story. Besides, I’ve reached the point where I have edit out every page that’s not needed. The other problem with this picture is that she looks too mature — I would have to repaint the entire picture to change her proportions to those of a cute kid. And yet, even if I did that, there’s still no room in the story for this picture. So, this picture’s moment of fame it’s appearance in this blog.

Chore Day, March 19 -- A Day of Spinning My Wheels

/

Besides the usual chores, which I won’t bother to mention, I spent many hours trying to get my Wacom Intuos Pro L working on my Mac. This giant tablet is my go-to tablet when I’m not using my Cintiq. It works perfectly on my Windows machine, but, alas, I can’t get it working on my Mac. The only reason I’m fretting about this is that I want to try Art Studio Pro on my Mac. It’s an awesome app on my iPad — I’m wondering if the magic will carry over to the desktop. I’m also wondering if the developers at Lucky Clan are putting as much effort into the desktop as the put into marvelous iPad app. By the way, the desktop version costs just $20.

If I can’t get the Intuos working, I’ll hook my Cintiq up to the Mac. It works flawlessly — at least it did several year ago.

Sketch for page 64 -- Jimmy Jay, Dylan Dolphin, and Betty Burro planning their next move

/

Now that the tabby cat volcano demon is happy, and all of the Moai are no longer stone statues, Jimmy, Dylan, and Betty are ready to go back to their normal lives. In this image they’re pleased that they’ve had an exciting adventure, but now they just want to take a vacation and sit quietly on a beautiful beach eating delicious mangos. I imagine Jimmy saying, “Wow! It was weird being a statue. What do we do next?” Betty will respond, “Hey, dude. Have you forgotten that we were on the way to a birthday party in Acapulco. The question is, how do we get there?” Dylan will say, “I have a solution. I’m an awesome swimmer. You can both ride on my back and we’ll get there in no time!” Everybody cheers. What could possibly go wrong with that brilliant plan?

One more time completing the two-page spread for pages 62 and 63

/

Added Kitty Kat’s stripes, the swan insignia on her shirt, several more fans in the stands, and spikes on the soles of her shoes. Little details that I love. I now pronounce these pages finished.

Resketching the tabby cat scoring a goal

/

I decided to redraw Tabby Cat. I felt that she was looking too digital. On the right is the sketch I’m working on — I’ll work on this more tomorrow. I almost use the word “finish”. Frankly, I should know better than to proclaim that I will finish anything at a specific time.

Tupa the Moai Goalie Leaping -- Painted with the "Paint and Apply" Clip Studio Paint Brush

/

My goal for this figure was to eliminate the outline and come up with something more painterly. I merged the line work layer and the color layer, then used the Clip Studio Paint brush called “Paint and Apply”, which essentially puts down paint when you use pressure and blends with light pressure.

Added Raggedy Ann Doll and sketch for floating magical cat

/

Today I advanced not one, but two inches. I was able to leave my contract job an hour early, which gave me an opportunity to put more time into….yes, page 61. Once I polish up the floating cat, I’ll be able to move on to page 62! Although, when I look at the position of the cat, she’s too close to the margin. I’ll have to shrink the page and more everything to the right. I’ll also have to fill in the margins.

And, in this picture I gave her a tail. I’m going to go back to every page she appears in and add a tail.