Hotel Kali-fornia

This took a really long time. I hope you appreciate it.

I've now added yet another step to my comicking process. Previously, I used to draw the whole thing on one sheet of paper and scan it. Then I switched to doing each panel spearately so I could colour and resize them, and play about with the format of the strip a bit more. (It also means I can resize/crop art instead of cutting dialogue.) Then I started colouring the whole image, inks as well, so it wasn't just white space I was colouring. Colouring outlines in complimentary colours to the ones they border is an aesthetically wonderful stage, and leaves the comic with a cleaner, organic feel than the sterility and harshness of pure black.

This comic marks the first time I've also shaded all of the panel images themselves, trying to stick to a single light source (without vast success, I admit) and give some depth to the images. (I experimented a little with it on the previous strip as well.)

Part of the fun of doing comics like this is that I get the chance to try out new things and develop a style of my own -- which, as with most artists on their early path, involves stealing ideas from other artist's work to see how they work out.

Best bits: the new shading; Kali's never looked better.
Worst bits: I hate Honey and want to punch her stupid vegetable-shaped head. Also, the backgrounds are pretty plain. I don't go to hotels much -- that's why the lobby looks a lot like the pub.