Starcrossed

Howdy folks!

I’m a bit behind on the comic this week. So, I thought I would show a little behind the scenes. The new comic is “posted” but I’m still working on the inks. Above are my rough pencils with some legible dialogue.

Over the last few weeks I’ve received quite a few questions on my creative process. The most common is, “Why do you draw with red pencils?” It’s one part old habit and one part function. The pencil I’m using is a Col-Erase “carmine red” animation pencil. I went to school for animation and it’s a comfortable tool for me. I also prefer the weight of the lead to regular graphite pencils. Also, I can manipulate the red pencil easier in Photoshop. I ink directly over the pencils without erasing. I scan the whole thing into Photoshop and then drop the red and magenta channels and my roughs completely disappear leaving me with just the inks and hopefully no more than an hour of correcting my mistakes!

I’ll post the new comic as soon as I have time to finish it. Thanks for your patience!

Update: Inks are now posted!

I’ve made some additions to StarcrossedOnline.com that I wanted to make a special mention of. I’ve posted an “About The Artist” blurb with a bit about me and my experience in cartooning. (So far.) I’ve also added a “Support Starcrossed” page explaining all the different ways readers like you can help support the comic.

Both pages will remain permanent links at the top of the blog.

Hi folks! I’ve mentioned recently on the blog that Starcrossed is getting between 250 and 300 hits a week. This is exciting for me on two fronts. First, it’s on par with where I was hoping to be at this stage of the comic. Second, Google Analytics has given me some insight into where a good chunk of these hits are coming from and I find it flattering that I’m darn sure I don’t know anyone in Idaho. What I mean to say is, there appears to be lots of folks out there that I don’t know reading Starcrossed.

Obviously there are a large concentration of readers in Halifax because that’s the easiest place for me to get the word out. Though, I don’t know that many people in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver or points in between. Shout out to the other coast! It looks like I have a reader in almost every US state. California for the win! I think I have some podcasters and fellow cartoonists to thank for spreading the word around there. Shout outs to New York, Arizona, Indiana and Texas! Seriously though, who do I know in Idaho? Or Missouri?

Some friends abroad are spreading the word as well. I’ve heard from readers in the UK and Ireland and Starcrossed is reaching as far as Romania, Australia and Columbia.

This is all very cool to me.

So, to everyone out there reading Starcrossed I just wanted to say hi, thank you for reading the strip, and encourage you to say hi back! Drop me an email or send a quick hello on Twitter. Post a comment under a comic that gets a chuckle, or post and share on the Starcrossed Facebook Page. I’d love to hear from you, and don’t forget to let me know where you’re from!

Cheers from Halifax!

~ Joel

Several readers got a kick out of the iPad Envy comic from April 19th. So, I’ve added some color (and some adjustments) and made an iPad wallpaper out of the strip. It was a bit of a learning curve but the image should display properly in both portrait and landscape orientations. Landscape may look a bit better depending on how many icons you have on your home screen.

The iPad wallpaper is “free for a favour.” That is, if you’re one of the lucky sods out there who has an iPad and you decide you would like to decorate it with my artwork, all I ask is that you tell two friends or coworkers (or as many people as you like) about Starcrossed. You can also send the link in an email, share the comic on your Facebook wall or tweet the URL to your followers. Be sure to give me a mention, @joelduggan, if you do. The share/save button right under the comic makes all of this pretty easy!

Starcrossed iPad Wallpaper

PNG 1024 x 1024 (250kb)

JPEG 1024 x 1024 (242kb)