Expanations and Weddings (Part 1)

So, I said I would explain why we've been neglecting our poor corner of the internet for so long, and I shall! This year has been a crazy one. In fact, just this summer alone, we have traveled to 8 different cities in just over 2 months! I don't think we've stopped moving, prepping, or making huge life-changing steps once since this time last year.

The thing that was the most wonderful and probably the most time-sucking (yes, that includes my last year of grad school!) was our wedding. We got married in October, shortly after our huge move and starting new jobs. The experts (experts of...what?) say that you should only do one huge life-changing thing in a year, but we thought we'd take care of oh, FOUR of them in a few short months. No biggie.

So, I'm going to go through our huge, out-of-state, extremely fun and art-filled wedding in a series of blog posts. If you are exhausted by all things wedding, I promise we will get back to our regularly scheduled (well, sort of regular) programming afterward.

Our first large hurdle was to set a date. We picked 10.10.10 because, well, obviously it is the best possible date. Ever. We had no idea what life had in store for us when we picked it the winter before, but hey, who ever does? The second was to, of course, start drawing.

We're both illustrators, so there is no way we could pass up an opportunity to illustrate and design our own wedding invitations, save the dates, and anything else we could stick a drawing to. We're very much alike, we work together on most projects anyway, and we love the same things, so it should have been the easiest part, right? Well, we did butt heads over many elements, but considering what kind of pressure we were under (to pack up our whole lives and start them somewhere else!) I am shocked we didn't rip each others faces off. And I take it as an excellent sign that we didn't!

The first project we undertook was the save the dates. We mailed them out about 6 months before the wedding. Our nicknames for each other are monkey and panda (yup, this series is going to be full of gag-inducing cuteness, but it's a WEDDING SERIES so it's to be expected) and so we went with that as a loose theme. Here's the front:


Durwin had a much-beloved scooter in Savannah, and it was far too dinky for both of us to really ride it at once, so we got to do it on here instead! Like we usually do, it was a collaborative effort. The printed postcards had rounded corners and lots of info on the back. I definitely loved going to people's houses and seeing it up on their refrigerators. It set up the whole wedding as a fun party because really, it was not going to be a stodgy affair with us!

Comic Con!

Yes, yes, I know this blog has been woefully updated. It's been a busy, busy year for us, which we will go into detail very soon. BUT! If you want to catch up with Perpetual Flights, Durwin will be at the SDCC this week in Artist's Alley. Go by and say hi, and see all the great things we are doing right now! And stay tuned, more is to come soon...

Oops

It's been far too long since this blog was updated. Here it is, September, and the last post was in June. Yikes, guys.

We've been very busy over here at PFS, mostly with Big Life Stuff, but also with Big Art Stuff. We have finished all of the art for issue 1 of Beautiful Scars, which is very exciting. I am working on a surprise to be included in the issue as well (it's really great). Now that life has settled down a little, we can start working on issue 2. We will finish up posting the pages soon, so check back for those!

Life is great, if not very hectic right now. Take care!

Page 17 - Falling In Love

Ah... young love.

Top storyline: Ridley literally falls heads over heels (bum over noggin?) in love after seeing Emma for the first time. How else is he going to impress the girls? By falling out of a tree after being smitten?

Bottom storyline: The Princess is ripped out of the Young Woodsman's life. Being both brave and stalwart, he will face the danger to save his Princess--no matter the cost.

Over all, a real fun panel to put together.

Guin and I wanted to say thanks to all of the folks we saw over Heroes Con in Charlotte last weekend. We had a blast. A shout out to our booth mates: Bernie Wrightson, Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin, Chris Moeller, John Van Fleet, Dave Dorman, Matt Wilson and the ever-moist Scott Hampton. It was three days of comics, nerdiness and overall FUN. We'll definitely give Heroes Con a go next year! A special thanks for all of the kind words of encouragement from those who perused Beautiful Scars--your positive mojo is crucial to getting this thing done! Until next page...

Heroes Con this weekend!

Hey all! Durwin and Guin will be at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC this weekend. We'll be there starting on Friday! If you're there, please stop by and say hello. Durwin will be promoting the trade paperback of Bonds, due out this July, and we'll have some artwork and new stuff to show as well. We'll be sitting near our pals Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin of Creature Box, Scott Hampton, Chris Moeller, Dave Dorman and more! Come by and say hi to all of us.

The Final Hurrah

As you may know, Bonds is being compiled into a trade paperback. This means fixing typos, adding sketches and even creating three more pages of storytelling to fill out the narrative (more on that later).

All of this on top of my teaching load at SCAD, which mercifully ends this week (more on that later as well!).

But I'm now in the mental space to worry about the blog, and for the next couple of weeks, I will post Bonds progress as it completes. However, no worries, Scars will continue to be posted as well. For now, enjoy this pencil sketch and mark July 7 on your calendars when the Bonds trade hits the shelves!

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/image-july-2010-solicitations-100428.html

Page 16 - Look Out!

We're chugging along! Soooo close to being done with the first issue. I can't wait to hit the last page. And then get cracking on issue 2!

We get our first glimpse of the love of Ridley's life, the precocious and adorable Emma. Ridley was waiting to catch a sight of the first car he'd ever seen, but didn't count on setting eyes on Emma as well. We used a Panhard & Levassor model for our antique car - it would have been around in England about that time. That was probably the trickiest research that we had to do for the whole book. There aren't many reference shots around for this particular model, but we did find one that someone had restored, which was very lucky. They look like kind of a pain to drive. But Emma and her dad don't seem to mind.

And! Drama! No wonder the woodsman was so upset on the last page. Snatching the poor princess off her feet like that, HOW RUDE. Will the woodsman turn into a Man of Action? Is that dark silhouetted Scars really behind all this? Find out next time...on page 17!