Category: Demos

Posted on by

Demos and Outakes for My Life in Records Pages 8 + 9

Here's a rough layout sketch for the final two page spread in the Prologue:

I was still trying to make the comic autobiographical at this point, so I added the metafictional cartoonist painting the music balloons.

When I made the inked version for the first issue (with the purple cover), I changed the layout of the middle tier of panels to make it more symmetrical.  I like how the "camera" pulls in and then back out to show Tom in his mask totally wrapped up in playing guitar.

For the final version found in the second first issue (say that ten times fast) I digitally removed the cartoonist figure at the bottom:

You can see this page in context with the rest of the story here.

You can also purchase the original art to these two pages

Page 10- 11" x 11" blue pencil and india ink on bristol board $45 (includes shipping)

Page 11- 11" x 11" blue pencil and india ink on bristol board $45 (includes shipping)

Posted on by

Demos and Outtakes for Pages 6 +7 of My Life in Records #1

Please click on the images to enlarge.
 
Originally, I planned to map out every single record that was meaningful to me in the prologue. Then I realized that I would have to either draw tiny little facsimiles of each album cover or make up a symbol for each one and that just seemed too daunting.  I also wanted to show how learning to play guitar gave me a greater appreciation for wider range of music.
 

For the next sketch, I settled on a strip across the top of tracks that I tried to learn to play interspersed with the play along CD from the Mel Bay How to Play Guitar book.  You can see at the bottom I was still going for the autobio/metafictional angle with the little cartoon Grant thinking as he drew the comic.

Here's the final page:

You can read the rest of this comic here.

Posted on by

Demos for Pages 4 + 5 of My Life in Records #1

This is one of my favorite sequences in My Life in Records.  I even have a slice of it at the top of this site.

Like most of the Prologue, I started out sketching the spread on notebook paper.  Man am I glad the ears didn't end up that big on the final version!

 
Here's a second version of the two pages that's a little tighter than the notebook paper version:

And here's the final version:

You can read the whole sequence here.
 

Posted on by

Demos for Pages 2 + 3 of My Life in Records #1

 If you recall from last week, I used to scribble out my layouts on scratch paper.  This nearly indecipherable image above is drawn on lined notebook paper.

Eventually, I made a tighter sketch which is posted below.

If you look closely, you can see a check mark in the bottom left hand corner of the sketch.  I like to put those on my thumbnails when I've finished drawing the final page.  Sometimes I even add the dates that I penciled and inked the final page.  (I rarely pencil and ink a page on the same day.)

The final page looks like this:

You can see the full sized "Album Version" of this page here and the book can be purchased here in the store.