-Here I blather about the comic we just made and how we done the pictures and words.

And so after the frankly painful process of making it we’re printing the thing and launching it at the festival of comics and animation in Tel Aviv next week- so if you’re over here, come and say hi. We’ll be there, hanging out and I’m planning to do some live digital painting.

We’ve ramped up the process somewhat as three of us have worked on this, so I thought it might be interesting for you to see how three people work together to make it. But first, here’s a few preview pages. Characters are by the annoyingly talented Mysh, Layouts Oren Mashkovski, BG’s me, colors, all of us. Boarding and thumbs: all of us.

Oh, and there’s no speech bubbles- Didn’t want to give anything away just yet….

Next post: Process

Well. Twelve seconds of animation. This a piece inspired from a comic/ animated property I’ve been working on at a snails pace, essentially about a pilot’s rivalry:

We decided to work with these boys when we were asked to make a short opener for the Animation festival here this summer. I love working in this style, graphic, 2d, but with hints of 3d for depth. We used flash for the characters, photoshop for the BG’s and After Effects for animation and compositing. Had hopes to use full 3d for the aircraft, but we’re going to have to save that for the TV series.

Here’s how some  backgrounds and props looked before animation.

Design and Concept: JP

Animation and Compositing: Oren Mashkovski

Flash Character setup: Mysh

So my morning warm up is all about inks a la Franquin. The Citroen 2CV at the bottom was the first car I possessed of any character. It lasted until I could see the road between my feet- and I thought it best to retire the thing.

Here’s a sample of progress on the Viking comic that I’ll be working on for an anthology by artists at Aardman. I’m determined to paint more than ever, so this is oils and a sprinkling of digitalness to follow. The original can now be hung on the bathroom wall

In other comics work, my partners Mysh and Oren and I are hard at work on a killer issue 2 for Duck and Cover. I’m enjoying inking BG’s before all the colouring begins. Got to tell you, Mysh’s characters for this are fantastic.

And lastly, enough of all this arty business. It’s summertime, schools out, time to build lego and head to the beach. Here’s my boy graduating to big school. So proud of this little family.

Next week I’ll mostly be in the UK and will be making a pilgrimage to the Tintin Museum in Brussels…

I’m setting up a Comic anthology project with Ashley Boddy of Aardman, showcasing stories by some of the best of Aardman’s artists. And this is the style I’m going to work in…much more news about that over the course of the summer.