The Erotic Artwork of SPACE BABE 113

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An image of Space Babe 113
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All images copyright (c) 2007, 2010, John Maybury. All rights reserved.
The Space Babe 113 strip from the Caption 2007 book. Full page here. A page from issue 4 of Space Babe 113. Full page here. A page from issue 8 of Space Babe 113. Full page here.
A page from issue 9 of Space Babe 113. Full page here. A strip from the mobile phone Space Babe 113 comic. Full page here.

For some strange reason, I feel compelled to tell you about how I produce Space Babe 113, so here goes...
The artwork for Space Babe 113 is created digitally, there aren't even rough pencil drawings. The process I use is as follows:

  • The panels are created as separate images on my iPAQ PDA.
    I use a package called Pocket Artist, from www.conduits.com. Despite running on a PDA, where you would expect cut down functionality, there are lots of features - multiple layers, gradient fills, variety of brushes etc.
    The user-interface packs a lot into a small space and seems well designed.

  • I download the panels from the PDA to a PC
    where I increase their size and remove the text before importing them into the Open Source Vector Graphics package called Inkscape.

  • With Inkscape, I convert the panels into vector images, assemble the page and letter it.
    The page can then be exported as a bitmap, ready to send to the publisher.

    The process of converting the bitmap to a vector image is known as "tracing" and the Inkscape bitmap tracer is very good. Using relatively low-resolution bitmaps, nicely smoothed artwork can be created. Being vector images, the artwork can be enlarged or reduced in size as desired, without loss of detail or creation of jaggies.

    For the printed comic, the results of the bitmap tracer are used as-is. For ROK Comics, I manually tweek the vector image and colour it. This is because the printed-page is a fixed size, however I can't be sure what size the ROK Comic images will viewed at.

    Inkscape is available from www.inkscape.org.

OK, I know what you're thinking - what is the point of all this? Isn't it just technology for its own sake? And why these products?

Actually, there are reasons for all this, mainly that it suits my style, helps me produce better work (I hope) and enables me to work on Space Babe whilst on the train going to work.

  • Before I started Space Babe, I had dabbled with generating artwork digitally and found that I liked it.

    When I create a page of comic artwork, there are two conflicting "forces" at work in my mind. One is saying "that bit isn't quite right, you'd better do it again" and the other is saying "it would take too long to draw it again". When I use traditional methods, the "it would take too long" force tends to win too often, either that or I damage the paper rubbing stuff out and if I've inked it already....

    Using digital means, you can save the artwork and modify it as much as you like, there is no "paper" to damage the surface of, you can selectively move bits around, resize them, rotate them etc. It is like using a PC to write a script, compared to using a typewritter ( or a pen... ). All this gives me more confidence when I start a page so I feel less pressure and that helps too.

    Possibly this just proves that I'm a lazy artist who doesn't do enough planning before working on the "final" product ( and I wouldn't disagree ), but I can do it better this way, probably in a shorter space of time.

  • It is still about drawing.

    Using the PDA as a ( small ) sketch book is like using one of those "magic slates" that were popular when I was a child - you draw with a stylus on a plastic surface. It isn't the same feel as pencil on paper, but that doesn't bother me.

    Despite the possibly convoluted sounding process the artwork goes through before it reaches the publisher, the vast majority of the time is spent in drawing the panels. As I indicated, I do most of the drawing on the way to and from work. Assembling the page and the rest of the process takes an hour or two at the end of the week ( for the printed comic - I tend to do a lot more work on the vector graphics for the strips at ROK Comics ).

    Digital artwork allows techniques that would be harder with pencil and paper - the digital "pencil" can make white lines as easily as black ( or any other colour ). You can construct a rough black line or shape and then refine it with white, for example.




I realise this may not be for everyone, each artist works the way that suits them. Space Babe 113's artwork is fairly minimilist and so may be better served by this style of working than a more realistically drawn strip - I don't know, but why not experiment?

As to why these particular products: I saw a friend at the CCG taking notes on a Palm and it occured to me that doing artwork with a PDA might be worth trying. I did a brief bit of research on the net and the Pocket Artist package appeared to be a good product - which it has indeed proved to be.

Choosing Pocket Artist meant I needed a Pocket PC style PDA, not a Palm. The particular iPAQ model I acquired was a reasonable trade-off between price and power, the latest models are more powerful of course.


Finally, for the price ( i.e. nothing as it is free ) Inkscape's bit map tracer is really impressive.


Remember: When using Inkscape or any other software - Save regularly and Save often!

I've recently switched to the latest Inkscape version, which has some great new features, my favourite is the Spell Checker - invaluable whilst lettering.