"Bonnie Lass" Ready to Set Sail

Red 5 Comics welcomes "Bonnie Lass" to their line of great comics!
Here's a direct link to Issue #1 on comixology's web browser viewer: https://comics.comixology.com/#/series/5548
Also available through comixology's and iVerse's movile device apps!

Full press release below!

Red 5 Comics is pleased to announce the newest addition to their acclaimed line-up, “Bonnie Lass: The Legend” from creators Michael Mayne and Tyler Fluharty.

“Bonnie Lass” spins the yarn of a brash and daring young heroine and her two muscle-headed sidekicks as they set out to build a reputation as swashbuckling pirates to be envied and feared. Bent on overshadowing her father, the infamous Cutlass, Bonnie’s after the one treasure he did not claim — the Eye of the Leviathan. But there are other forces at work seeking to claim it for themselves.

Bonnie’s world blends the familiar cultural motifs of the most legendary sea-faring pirates of the 1700s and 1800s with a the tone of an American western and a dash of modern-day technology like automobiles and GPS. The unique setting lends unexpected and wildly entertaining twists to a traditional pirate tale.

“Bonnie Lass” was created, written and illustrated by Michael Mayne and co-written by Tyler Fluharty. Mayne is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer with over twenty-five small press children’s books and novel covers to his credit. He recently illustrated the “Gearz/VSS” comic from Bluewater Productions.

“Bonnie Lass” marks the first title in a line of digital-debut comic series from Red 5 Comics. These titles are the best of the creator-owned off-beat, fresh-talent, eclectic or genre stories looking to build an audience and acclaim before making the leap to print editions.

“Bonnie Lass” debuts on the comixology (http://comics.comixology.com — iOS, web and Android) and iVerse (http://www.iversecomics.com – iOS, PSP) digital platforms on December 22. Issue #1 is a plus-sized 34 pages long for just $1.99.

Storm's a brewin'…

Hello again, Unresponsive Void!

So... Three months since an update? Yeah, most of the activity has been on deviantART, and even that's died down during the publisher hunting process...

But I'm just here today to drop a small info bomb.

Bonnie has a new home on Facebook!
It's an actual Page now, as opposed to the old Group. Makes it easier to "like." And you like "liking," don't you? So hop on over and like Bonnie!

An actual big news update should be coming soon. And the Facebook page will probably get first priority as far as updating, so be sure you're a fan!

Psst... Another sneak peek...

See that cruelly unembiggenable thumbnail? Hop over to the Bonnie Lass Facebook group to catch a bigger glimpse at the opening spread from Chapter 3! Don't forget to join if you haven't! Yes, I'm talking to you, Unresponsive Void! =)

I've been hammering away at the pages the last couple of days. The interior artwork for Chapter 3 ought to be finished by Sunday, and very likely as early as Saturday night.

With as quick as the work's been going lately, I might be finishing up all the other stuff I have to go back and do with Chapters 1 and 2 by next weekend...! Or thereabouts...

Nearing the end!

OK, so it's been a month since the last update. I'm terrible at progress reports, I guess.

But the fact of the matter is, I've been really busy, both with Bonnie Lass and other projects, the latter of which is of no concern here, so about the former...

I'm shooting to wrap up chapter 3 sometime during the week of June 6th. I've got four panels left to ink on the pages I already have roughed (24) and then five more pages to draw and ink from scratch. I believe nine pages are already flatted, leaving twenty to go. I'm hoping that only takes about four or five days. Then it should be another four days or so to lay in the shading and misc. color effects and text. So, yeah, hopefully just another two weeks or so.

Though, after that I've still got to go back and finish a few pages for chapter 2. And illustrate the covers for chapters 2 and 3.

I wish I was better at this whole "work in progress" thing. It's just really impractical for me to scan in pages that aren't actually ready to be digitized yet... And the pages that are worked digitally so far have what I would consider notable spoilers.

A sense of accomplishment...

I don't know what sparked in me this week, but I feel like I've gotten quite a bit of inking done in just the last three or four days...

There's a lot more black on the pages, covering up the red now. Many of the pages are only waiting for a panel or two to be inked. Several of the pages toward the end will be relatively easy, as they are occupied by larger panels that I'll breeze through once I start on them.

Page 7 of Chapter 3 is an interesting subject. Something was bugging me about the roughs, so I worked them over till I thought I'd ironed them out, but once I started inking I realized there's one panel where Bonnie's figure is unnaturally elongated. Fortunately I drew her in such a way that I'll be able to nudge her down to size in Photoshop.

In another panel, Bonnie is comparatively too large as she stomps toward Monet. I actually haven't inked Monet yet, so I could just redraw him and ink him to match her, but I think his size in relation to the composition of the panel is just right; it's Bonnie whom I will resize slightly in Photoshop, methinks.

I'll try to remember to post a comparison of this page—the cleaned up scan before and after artistic edits. You'll get an idea of the kinds of "errors" I stick with on paper, only to digitally edit them later.

More production inks...

Another one of the digital-ready pages. Just thought I'd post a clean shot of a WIP before it's colored at all.

Chapter 3 gets some color!

Still doing major work on the inks for Chapter 3, and I got the first full page done today. There are several others on the verge of being done, but I wanted to color a new page since it's been a while—at least for Bonnie Lass.
Just flats and a little bit of background texturing done, but it's coming along smoothly.

Ahoy, amigos! It's a Bonnie Lass wallpaper!

Click the link to download the fullsize from my deviantART page. The link takes you to the standard Windows sized wallpaper (768x1024) so if you're running anything at that ratio, that's the one for you.

There's also this link for the standard Mac screen ratio of 900x1440.

Presenting... By the Pint, #1!

Ladies and gentlemen, here is the first of the 4-panel "By the Pint" comic strips, starring characters from Bonnie Lass!

The art style will fluctuate as I find a quick, workable approach throughout the first several strips. The humor, however, will pretty much maintain the current level of Suck from here on out.

St. Patty's Day Bonnie

The coloring job on this beast took about 5 hours, I think. I don't know why. I did a little experimenting, but not too much, I didn't think... Oh well. 'Twas fun. And now I can officially say I was festive for St. Patty's Day...

Boobs and beer... It must be Bonnie!

Just working on a St. Patty's Day pinup of Bonnie for an art jam over on deviantART. Between actual work on the comic and other stuff, ought to have this done by... St. Patty's Day, at the latest.

Proof of Purchase Inking

Yes, they're webcam snapshots. I told you. I just have no use for scanning them in right now because they're obviously not done.

You'll see that I'm being rather unconventional with my process (or am I? I don't know). No real order in which I work on any given panel (or page, for that matter). Basically, whatever seems like a fun subject to ink at the time, or whatever seems fastest, gets done first. So there are inks on every single page of roughs so far; there's just not one, single page in and of itself that is completely inked.

Also of note is that I don't really have a clean, pencil state. I just go from semi-polished roughs straight into inking. As a result, roughing takes a little longer than it would if they were literally "roughs," and inking probably takes a bit longer because I'm still technically making decisions on the composition of the lines. By skipping the pencils, I'm probably only saving about 10-15% of the time it would otherwise take. Actually, I'd say that's a pretty good number in the long run. Glad I just did the layman's math on that...!


And... I roughed (I believe) all of the above pages while re-watching the last few episodes of Gurren Lagann. You can tell. I inked parts of the top pages while watching Die Hard. You can't really tell.

Oy...

Upon trying to streamline the process of drawing The Officer Delgado (Bonnie's ship), the design itself has undergone some changes.

Over the two years that the project's been in some kind of development or another, the Delgado went from a bulky little fishing boat just barely big enough to carry the makeshift cabin on-deck (back then it was an RV), to a clunkier, bigger vessel, and from there a taller, leaner version (with a generic delivery truck replacing the RV as the "cabin").

Since the last major revamp, it's taken on a few minor tweaks, most of which I've felt were innocuous enough to slip in without retroactively going back to alter previous shots of the ship—going with the notion that over time the readers would remember certain details of the ship in pieces, and later when it's seen as a collective whole, the latest "version" of the ship is the definitive amalgamation of those sometimes contradicting details.

Those details have been slight enough up until now for me to feel comfortable leaving them be. But tonight while roughing and inking Chapter 3, I finally started to develop a more streamlined technique for sketching out the shape of the ship. In doing so, it makes the lines of the form really look a whole lot more appealing, but it slightly moves some of the details around.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's "slightly" enough. More on the "noticeable" end of the spectrum. So it looks like I'm going to be going back through some of the pages in Chapters 1 and 2 and touching up certain shots of the Delgado. Chapter 1 will be the chore; in Chapter 2, there are only a few long shots of the Delgado to begin with, and the ones that could use some adjusting really wouldn't require much at all.

The actual work doesn't really bother me (I'm just going to make all the edits on one new layer, over top of the other work layers); it's the waiting on the Photoshop files to load. Bummer...

In the end, it will be worth it. The Delgado will look a whole lot nicer (for a ship that's supposed to be a junker, anyway).

The inks. They cometh.

So I've been inking Chapter 3 (rather casually) for the last two or three days. Still have 5 pages of roughs to get to, but I ran out of Bristol paper on Thursday, so I need to get to Hobby Lobby and pick up some more.

So in the meantime, I decided to go ahead and get a jumpstart on the inking. I'd like to get about 10-12 more pages done this week, at least. That would put me past the halfway point on inking, whereupon I'd only need another week and a half to get onto coloring and lettering.

Chapter 3 is definitely moving along very fast (err... compared to Chapters 1 and 2; practically speaking, I'm probably only working about as fast as I would actually NEED to work to be professionally efficient). But, assuming I don't have too many other projects crop up in the next few weeks, I should be onto the coloring phase pretty soon!


I'll try and get some visuals up here soon, so it's not just wall after wall of text. Since I haven't done anything digitally yet, though, I've just had no need to scan anything in. Maybe some crude webcam snapshots will suffice... at least during the roughs/early inking stages...

Movin' on up...

Nothing new to show, but the roughs for chapter 3 are more than halfway done. I even lessened the page-count, bringing it down to 30 pages. If all goes as smoothly as it has and I keep working as much as I can, I'll have the roughs done in less than a week!

I'll try to expedite the inking process as much as possible while keeping it from deviating from the look of the first two chapters.

Then coloring and all the other digital stuff should go a little smoother as well, since I'll be modifying the automated part of the process a little.


Boy, am I glad I went ahead and scripted chapters 3 and 4 at the same time! I'd say knowing that in the back of my mind has been motivating me a little more even during the roughing stage...

Bonnie and Co. practic CQC

Kicking off the "Production Blog" phase of the comic. I've got plenty of material to share as of now, I just haven't scanned any of it in. It'll show up in due time.

For now, here's something I just worked up for chapter 3. The character interaction and composition for this shot was proving to be rather tricky on paper, so I took to the Mac to rough it out on a bigger scale, so as to avoid wasting lead, paper and eraser until I got it just right.
From here I'll just use the screen on my iMac as a makeshift lightbox and trace all the important lines for pencil & paper roughs. This works in my case because I happen to draw very light to begin with, and even lighter when I know I'm pressing against my flatscreen. XD
So if you have a heavy hand, I wouldn't suggest it.

Anyway, this isn't what the final comp will look like, as I'm going to be making room for another character in the immediate foreground. And of course the details are just roughs as well, so I'll actually be making the characters look themselves in the final phase.

That's all for now. The work beckons!