Working With a Brush

Humanis Rex #2 is the first piece of work I drew almost exclusively with a brush. I used a Hunts #102 on some backgrounds, and I did use tech pens on the guns, but the brush is what I used on the figurework, hair, cross hatchings, clothing, grass, etc.

Working with a brush is so fantastic. I love the softness of the linework and the speed in which I finished the page. I drew this in half the time I did Humanis Rex #1. Now I don't know if there are any drawing I'll do in the future without using it, except of course my inking job with Leinil on Silent Dragon, which requires the use of the smallest tech pen point for the insanely intricate microscopic linework.

Unang Labas!

The first installment of Humanis Rex in Fudge Magazine ought to be coming out at anytime this week, if it already hasn't. I might not be able to get a copy of it until next week.

Humanis First!

I was first approached to do a comic strip for the Inquirer a year ago which was by then still planning to put together a comic section for their Sunday edition. Since a date had been set for the first release (which I remember to be nearly immediate), I rushed to do two proposals, one for Timawa and another for Humanis Rex. The format for the strip will be horizontal and so I designed my pages that way. They were interested in both proposals, but I had said I had time to do just one. I don't remember if I decided to do Timawa or if they decided it, but it was Timawa that I ended up developing.

But the months wore on, and the intitial release date had been postponed indefinitely. I decided to move on to other things and committed myself to drawing other comics when the Inquirer called again to say that we were back on track. I had to tell them of my situation, that I had taken on committments in the meantime which prevent me from continuing with the strip. So I had to let them go.

It wasn't until I got in touch with an old friend, Annie Alejo, editor of FUDGE Magazine that I had the opportunity to do the strip on a less hectic schedule. I knew Annie from PULP Magazine... and I also know Fudge's Editorial/Marketing Assistant and Photographer Ed Ramos, who happens to be Annie's significant other. So it's pretty much doing something with some old good friends. Pero di sila old, ha.

Bring on the Bad Guys!!

Here's a sneak peak on the look of the bad guys of the story, the Crimean Dominion.



Part 1 has been finished and submitted last week and it should be coming out in the upcoming issue of FUDGE. I was finally able to see what the Humanis Rex ad below looks like in print and I'll use that as a guide on how to approach future pages in terms of inking and coloring and what would look good on the printed page. I expect to be trying to get a grip on this in the first few installments as I learn how to best present the art.