Extras and Freebies

Each step of Andellon starts with our chat room conversations. We talk on a friend's MOO (thank you, Jimmy, for hosting the official Andellon office!). While chatting, Bama jots down the ideas pictorially, on super-fancy standard computer paper. At first, they are nothing more than visual "notes." The dark blotch on the top center is a scanner glitch. (HP scanner/copier/printer/fax machines actually pretty much suck eggs.)

The notes are then turned into a more detailed sketch. This is also when details are noted... in this example, we had to change Renee's wristwatch (which wasn't invented until the 1940s) to a pocketwatch.

Then Bama inks the sketch with Brenda the wonderful ink pen. Stores call these "Uniball Vision Elites," but Bama tends to give things human names. Brendas are expensive, but worth every penny. And yes, this is when the details come. If Bama gets nervous, she'll pencil in a few more. But for the most part, if she was just following pencil lines with an ink pen, she would die of bordom.
Then Bama erases the pencil marks, being very careful to knock all the eraser shavings in the garbage can. Yes, I really am, hubby, dear. Stop looking at me that way.

Finally, the art is completely drawn, inked, and shaded, and gets scanned into the computer. This is where Bama gets all excited and tells Twiga that the "page is finished!" But when Twiga asks to see it, Bama always says "it's not done." Apparently there is a difference between "finished" and "done" in Bama's mind.
<= Finished, but not Done.

Time to shop the page! Bama uses the Gimp. She does this because it's free, and she's cheap. It's also perfectly well capable of handling what she's after.

First, Bama loads up the image, and then she creates a second clear layer on top. Then she copies blocks of the image to the clear layer... these become the frames of the page. Afterwards, she wiggles a layer in between the two, and sticks the background image there. In this chapter, it's the faboo Oriental rug.

Looks like Renee's ponytail snunk into the second frame. That's easily fixed with the cloning device. Just clearing it won't work, since the "white" paper isn't perfectly white.

Next come the text bubbles. Here's a trick: Gimp does really wonky with text, so Bama makes a different text layer for each bubble. Then she merges them down until it's one large layer. Something odd happens in Gimp with typing... sometimes it just closes with no warning at all. (I suspect the letter Y is involved somehow.) To solve, type slowly, and know exactly what you're going to say before saying it. (I don't know why that works, but it does.)
Add a fifth layer for the bubbles... between the frames layer and the text layer. Then use the cicle select tool to circle the words, and fill in the circle in white. (This is the easiest part of the page.) For the thought bubble, make a bunch of little circles instead of one big one.

After all this, it's easiest to merge the text layer down onto the bubble layer. Then you can freely mess around with placement of the bubbles and the frames.
Add lines to the text bubbles and you're good to go!

Andellon is owned and copyrighted by Bama and Twiga, and if you try to steal any of our stuff, we will sic Fernando on you.

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