Category: Art

The Locked Maze 3: Page 42

The Locked Maze 3: Page 42 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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And welcome back to Morgan, Hyacinth, Poppy, and also Jay, Kestrel, and Tulip (who may be harder to spot). :)
Posted 2011.06.12 10:38 | Last modified 2011.06.19 11:15 | 10 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 41

The Locked Maze 3: Page 41 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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Two pages in one week! OMG I haven't managed that in ages. Given that page 40 is just filler, it would not have been so painfully hard, but I was also helping the Significant Other finish assembling his photography final (link) and lord, I am soooo tired. I finally upgraded to Photoshop CS5.5 (wuvey-purchased copy, so I could read his camera files) and there is a bit of a learning curve, but I am giddy to report that the jagged line issue between CS3 and my tablet - which I have put up with for three years - is finally resolved! YAY! I can draw straight lines without zooming in to 400%. The downside is that the new smooth lines are so incredibly perfect that my old computer does not have the resolution to match. I keep clicking in the wrong place and getting crooked lines anyway. :/

I have been dreading this page for the last two months, but turns out that if you just stop caring and scribble in generic people shapes, and color everything in monotone, then it aint so hard after all. By my calculations there should be over 30 million ghosts waiting (thats for two years, and Morgan said it had been going on for longer). But I couldn't even draw 30 million DOTS, so you'll just have to imagine all the rest. :P
Posted 2011.06.05 17:56 | Last modified 2011.06.12 10:35 | 6 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 40

The Locked Maze 3: Page 40 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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I added this page at the last minute to improve the pacing.
Posted 2011.06.05 17:48 | Last modified 2011.06.05 17:48 | Comments Closed

The Locked Maze 3: Page 39

The Locked Maze 3: Page 39 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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I originally intended a lot more color on this page, but I ended up going back to the original ghost color palette from page 8. This necessitated changing the final panel on page 38 to match, but meh, worth it. Lots of colors are too hard to work with. :P

So, this is probably the most action we've seen in the whole comic, barring the end of Book II. It was fun drawing blowing hair and capes and all that stuff. Since it is pretty much the polar opposite of normal around here. And I don't think of myself as being particularly capable when it comes to action scenes, but I guess maybe it's not so far out of reach as I had thought. :) If I ever manage to convince myself to work on my next project, this will come in useful. *steeples fingers* Excellent...
Posted 2011.05.28 23:42 | Last modified 2011.06.05 17:47 | 9 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 38

The Locked Maze 3: Page 38 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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I am not sure how I feel about this page. It is both climactic and anticlimactic at once. I mean, how incredibly thrilling is it that my heroine TOOK ONE STEP! I am sure the artists who fill Marvel and DC pages with superhero battles would be amazed at my impressive action shot there. :P But at the same time, this is kinda the entire point of my comic, that one person with zero magical powers can somehow make a difference. By doing almost nothing.

Anyway, there it is. I suppose I should worry more about revealing everything and try to save it all up for the last big page of action next week, before the wrap-up epilogue. But I am not caring about that now. At this point in the other two books, I was pretty thrilled, because I felt like I had made huge leaps in drawing skills and fan appreciation. In Book III, not so much. Meh. I am just not ready to let it go, I guess. It's been almost a whole decade of my life, after all. And when it is all done, I have to go back to the real world, a boring programmer for the rest of my life. :/
Posted 2011.05.22 0:09 | Last modified 2011.05.28 23:43 | 13 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 37

The Locked Maze 3: Page 37 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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Dunno why, but I think panel 4 is one of my favoritest panels ever. :)
Posted 2011.05.15 9:19 | Last modified 2011.05.22 0:09 | 2 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 36

The Locked Maze 3: Page 36 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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Even Anna is getting in on the funny today. :)

I was up so late last night that my brain is one big fuzzy mess. I dunno how you other artists do it. Around midnight I got the most awful headache and my eyes crusted over and although I persisted for another hour or so, I was mostly just making things worse. Also: my rental may have lovely windows and a garage, but the 1980s idea of adequate room lighting is downright comical. Even the extra lamps I've put do not help when doing any detail work. :/ I guess it just encourages me to work more on the computer, seeing as it comes with its own light source.
Posted 2011.05.08 9:50 | Last modified 2011.05.15 9:19 | Comments Closed

The Locked Maze 3: Page 35

The Locked Maze 3: Page 35 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

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I have missed Lucky. And when I think I only have a few pages left with him in them... *sigh* I am sad.

In the last pages of this comic, I am going to hit some moments where climactic action or dialogue takes multiple pages to complete. I had hoped that I could finish pages fast enough to just give you two a week in those cases, but that is just not going to happen. These pages will be some of the most difficult I have ever drawn and they will have crowds of people, most of whom need to be identifiable, but with... *complications* to that identity. I will be lucky if I can finish even one a week.

So in the event that a page would reveal something that I need to keep hidden for another week, I will either remove the dialogue or a few panels for that week and mark the page WIP. But I will do my best to keep the one-a-week pace going regardless.
Posted 2011.05.01 10:21 | Last modified 2011.05.08 9:46 | 3 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 34

The Locked Maze 3: Page 34 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.



I think Holly really confused the poor puppies here. It's a game? It's a race? What? What? :P

And it being Easter today, I am curious about something. Do little kids really ever believe in the Easter Bunny? I know most kids (in the USA anyway) believe in Santa until 8 or so, but as the artist of the family I was recruited early for holiday wrapping skills and thus have zero memory of Santa being anything other than a holiday gimmick, like Cupid on Valentine's day. The Easter Bunny was even more obviously nothing more than a storytime character to be rendered in delicious chocolate and fluffy toys. It seems very strange (and more than a little creepy) that any child would ever believe a large rabbit who somehow births candy offspring in the form of an egg (and despite being male) comes around in the wee hours of the morning and hides his progeny in our yards. Even from the perspective of someone who looks at the pagan (and particularly Classical and pre-Classical) origins of all holidays, Easter is just really, really bizarre.
Posted 2011.04.24 10:29 | Last modified 2011.05.01 10:21 | 2 Comments

The Locked Maze 3: Page 33

The Locked Maze 3: Page 33 (mleiv.com)
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop Size: 8.5X11"

All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.



A eureka moment for Holly finally. And me, I am just tired. So much done in the past week, and so much to catch up on now-!
Posted 2011.04.17 23:41 | Last modified 2011.04.24 10:29 | 7 Comments

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