Nismorack.com

With a basic character design and style, which is most notable for the mouth and eyes, I decided to try my hand on drawing more faces using this style.

This image only shows the inked variants, there were some sketches which were terrible. But even with these sketches I made a clear selection of characters.

I came to this selection by showing it to friends and gauging their reaction. Everyone pointed out who they liked and they didn’t like. And of course there was personal choice in the matter. For instance the top right guy is a bit boring. Eventually you can see the seven characters picked which I then put into a lineup.

It was around this point that I decided that this cast would be ideal for an IT comic. The exact details of the IT comic were unclear but I decided to go for a small IT company. These roles were quickly decided upon based on their looks and first impression from others. The names for some came later and inspired in various ways.

So from left to right we get:

• Jay, designer and html/css creator
• Abbey, Receptionist and administration
• Manny, Boss/owner
• Boomer, Programmer and DBA
• Darryl, Sysadmin and jack of all trades.
• Gina, Marketing and sales
• Rain, Code guru.

Each character will get a detailed post on who they are and where they came from. As they were all created based on my experiences in the IT field.

The new comic I’m working on began with the above sketch. I was experimenting with the mouth to be accurate, the face and body just kind of appeared around it. The cigarette I just found kinda cool.

Interestingly I lost this sketch for a while buried under papers. So when I revisited this character I had forgotten how I had drawn him and drew him again from memory.

If this is a representation of my memory, then I think I’m in trouble. At this point this character was actually more of a punk slacker than something IT related. That part came a whole lot later. When I drew this I needed him for a competition that required a two page comic. As I didn’t want to use The House Of Madness, I decided to create an entirely new character instead. As you can see I added all sorts of notes regarding his personality.

Eventually I used this comic in a two page comic where he has an interesting pantomime solo adventure. It didn’t win a prize but I did feel the character design was interesting enough to create a comic with it. An idea I let develop in the back of my mind.

But this is roughly where it began. More to follow.

Writing down my origins does sort counter act the whole secret part of the title, having secret in your title makes it look cool. Or not, you decide.

But before I delve into the creation of this new comic, I figured I should elaborate a bit more on where I came from and how I got here.

As a kid I did some drawing, mostly basic stuff and a lot of tracing. I did read a lot of European comics such a Tin Tin, Suske en Wiske, Asterix en Obelix, etc. Most American comic related things came to me in the form as cartoons. But for myself I wasn’t really drawing or making comics. Once I discovered the wonderful world of computers however, the whole drawing thing faded entirely into the background.

Computers were the new hip thing I wanted a career in. I actually considered game programming for a while and making games. After basicschool I headed on to a Technical Informatica school (it’s kinda like college but not). There I learned to program in various languages, how to set up networks and the fact that this wasn’t the career for me. Of course I discovered this in the third year and well, I’m not a quiter.

What I did discover here however were webcomics. Through classmates I discovered comics such a User Friendly, Sluggy Freelance, PVP Online and Penny Arcade. I loved these great witty and quirky comics and was quite hooked. Back then I only needed three days to read through the entire Sluggy Freelance archive. I’m sure these days one needs more time.

There were thoughts of making my own comic like it for the heck of it but since I couldn’t draw to save me I stuck with writing random stuff. Primarily freeform roleplaying on forums. Somewhere at the end of that school I wrote a really short but funny story about two guys living in a house (if I dig up the story again I’ll post it here). This was to be the start of The House Of Madness, though it wasn’t called as such back then.

This was near the end of the IT education where I end this first part of the story. Otherwise this story would be a bit long winded. Next week the second part in the thrilling story of my life. The rest of this week will be used for actual comic related information.

To kick off this spiffy new blog which will contain sensible articles that either help people or inform them. Let’s talk about a new comic I’m working on.

First off let’s go into the details of ‘why’ I’m working on a new comic and what this means for my current comic. You may notice I’m not referring to either as a webcomic. This is because a comic is a comic and the web is just another medium to spread it.

The reason I’m working on a new comic has various reasons. Though th primary reason is because I want to make a comic related to the IT world. It’s a field I have over ten years experience in now and those experiences have yielded a lot of fun anecdotal stories.

Despite there being a whole bunch of comics about IT I’m still doing it because I ‘want’ to do it.

But there are other reasons for this development. While The House Of Madness is a decent and fun comic it has become increasinly harder to write for it. This is caused primarily by a lack of limitations the comic has. Anything goes and anything is possible which believe it or not makes writing for it very hard.

THOM is also my first comic and no one says my first comic has to be a hit or a loss. The years I have spent drawing it has taught me a lot about writing, drawing and comic creation. All experience which I am putting to use in creating this new comic.

But I’m not just giving up on THOM overnight. Before I stop drawing that I want to give it a proper ending. Once it’s ended there might be a character that gets a spin-off. Though that’s still a bit away.

While that happens I want to use this blog to explore the creation of this new comic. By going into the process of how it came to be. Sketches I’m doing about the characters and other interesting facts. There will be the occasional sidetracks into related topics of course.

So join me as I journey through the world of comics to create a new one.