Yana Selfie.

I posted this pin-up on my DA page a couple of days ago, as my account hit the big 10,000 mark. I haven’t drawn Yana for a while, so doing this shot was a big thrill for me. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve kind of fallen under the spell of the recent craze of sexy girls taking selfies of themselves. Yana being a beautiful, young girl barely in her twenties, it didn’t seem out of character for her to get in on the act, also. Once I had the idea a few weeks ago, I knew I had to draw it. I think this shot came out ok, actually. I spent ages trying to get the body languages just right. I think this is one of my favourite drawings I’ve ever done of Yana.    

Still not a 100% sure if there will be a Babayka: Book 2, but if there is, I will differently put the above pin-up in the extras section. Will probably throw in my web-comic header, too, so people can have a printed physical copy of that as well. Anybody still hungry for Yana pin-ups should check out the graphic-novel. I drew an exclusive Yana, Vera and a mystery third guest share a bath pin-up in the back of the book.  

Speaking of Vera, there’s no Yana in this week’s instalment, but Vera and Klara both pop up. (Since I’m namedropping a lot of Brides in this week post, I’m gonna end by putting this helpful girls character sheet link in, so people don’t get too confused about who’s who.)

Enjoy The Silence.

And so our group goes trekking off silently into the distant in this week’s gripping, if slightly quiet instalment. I have to say this is one of my favourite pages from the whole book. Originally, the characters were never meant to leave the hotel in the first draft. You were never meant to see the surrounding location. I’m very glad I change my mind on that subject. What’s a good horror story without a creepy ghost town to set it in, right?   

Just a quick update on my deviantart page hitting 10,000. I’m at the time of writing this just 42-hits shy of the target. The special pin-up I drew just for this occasion has now been clean up with an eraser, scanned, cleaned up digitally in photoshop, and resizes, and is currently sitting on my computer desktop, ready to go. So please feel free to pop over to my DA page any time soon and bump up that number. As I’ve recently revealed over on my DA page, this pin-up stars one of the main characters from Brides Of Babayka, doing something that’s very trendy right now (but will probably have gone out of fashion by the time I get to post it.) 

A Colourful Ghost From The Past.

I recently had to scan some old documents for reasons best not gone into, and one of them was my old college library card. I scanned it on the wrong setting at first, but kind of liked the effect I accidentally got, so I thought I’d share it here (or at least the photo.) If you ever wondered what I looked like ten years ago and with a reduce colour palette, it would look like above. I think it’s got a cool screen-print vibe about it.

You’re gonna need to wrap up warm as things head outside this week (or rather the weekend just gone) on Babayka-Lives.

The Mummie Returns.

I’ve actually been meaning to post this re-jig of an old sketchbook doodle from last year for a while now, but you know… the scanner’s on the other side of the room… my sketchbook was under a massive pile of books. yadda, yadda, yadda.

I went off the original sketch pretty soon after drawing it, so at first I just tried to strengthen the line work, but before long I had my markers out, and was adding colour, too. While it’s important to learn when to let an image go and not over render it, I actually think it looks a little bit better. I still don’t love this doodle, but at least now I can tolerate it. I re-jigged it into submission.

What with getting the web-comic going, and working on new sequential pages lately, I haven’t had much time for doing quick drawings in my sketch-book recently. I’m not saying there will be a Babayka: Book 2, but this week I did commit to buying a new hundred page folder for keeping these new pages in.

The Plot Sickens.

I think some webs are differently being spun in this week’s instalment of Babayka-Lives. 

As I mentioned on my deviantart account last weekend, I have actually done a piece of art to mark my page hitting 10,000-views. It just needs cleaning up and scanning, and it’s ready to go. No doubt I’ll probably post it on here too, but not until my account hits its target in a couple of months. So please be sure to check out my deviantart page, and help fatten up my page views, so I can post it ASAP. I don’t want to big it up too much, but this pin-up is one of my favourite things I’ve drawn so far in 2014. Dare I say it’s a little bit sexy.

Here’s how my page view counter looks as of now: 

Elevator Pitch.

It’s maybe not my strongest point, summing up my web-comic, but I recently had to write a small blurb for my Project Wonderful account, and I thought I’d share the results here. Think of it like an elevator pitch to sell the concept to a new reader. Mine currently reads:

“Ongoing horror web-comic series about the shadowy figure of Babayka, and the poor, unfortunate individuals who cross his path . Aided by his beautiful Brides, very few have lived to tell the tale of the monstrous Babayka, and his misadventures in his tucked away lair deep in the Russian wilderness. By UK comic book writer\artist Andrew Reed. Web-comic recommended for older readers.”

I heard it’s a good idea if you can get your web-comic pitch down to three words. This I haven’t been able to do yet, but it’s something I’m gonna be trying to figure out in the next few weeks. The closes I’ve got is:

“Survival Horror Pot-Boiler”

Which needs work (for a start, I’m not 100% sure ‘pot-boiler’ isn’t two words… but anyway.) The three word pitch is a work-in-progress, really.

Very much looking forward to watching this program tomorrow night. Wish there were a hell of a lot more inside comic-book artist’s studio shows on TV.

Sneaky Peek.

For anyone who can’t wait until Saturday, I remembered earlier today while signed into my deviantart account that I already had Page 28 up posted on there as a sequential sample page (best to avoid sequential sample pages on my devaintart account full stop if you don’t want any spoilers at all. Not that I posted any spoiler heavy pages, or even any pages from Chapter 4, but still…) There’s no word-balloons on it, so you’ll still need to tune into Babayka-Lives this weekend, but any eager beavers can follow this link and get an early peek.

Worth following this link if only to push my Deviantart counter closer to 10,000-hits. I’ve been working on something to post when I do reach that magic number, so that’s something to keep an eye out for later this year.