Teamwork: The Making of Faminelands

Has anyone ever wondered what it is like to collaborate on a book or comic?

I am very lucky to work on the ZB projects with my best friend, Maria Masterson. Five years ago, when I began having the idea for this elf comic….what would become Faminelands. Maria was on maternity leave and I asked her if she wanted to do some editing. She became so much more than just doing editing. How did we make it work? Contracts.

We keep updated contracts and always speak of what might be in the future in order to no have hard feelings later.

We both agree that while I am the megalomanic with the ideas and determination to get the books done, she has the gift to hone my ideas, but you might be asking yourself what does that look like in the project itself.

First off, I write the main script.

Maria looks at it and does some developmental editing at that point.

Then I begin to draw. We discuss any part that I am having problems with during the storyboarding/penciling stage. Generally Maria has an idea that will add tension to the book. I ink, color, do a first round of lettering. 

Honestly, I try not to show Maria too much unfinished artwork, because she does not see it complete while in process.

She can’t look at my pencils and see artwork  as anything other than unfinished. So she doesn’t know what she likes or doesn’t like. Only when it is complete, if she sees problems with the artwork, I redraw, reink and recolor a page.

Maria and I go back and forth discussing each line of dialogue.  Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we get frustrated, but we always come to a decision. 

So that’s how our team works.

Any one else out there collaborate on projects? How do you get the work done?

If you like what you see consider donating to the Print Faminelands: Mareton’s Curse Kickstarter Campaign which is running between October 10 – November 9th. There are lots of exciting rewards.

Check it out!

Faminelands Book #3: Mareton’s Curse is in Beta Reading!

I finished the artwork for Faminelands 3: Mareton’s Curse in August, Maria and I have gone through the first edit. The next step is Beta Reading: which means we are having a few people take a look at it.

The story opens with Galdor’s wedding and follows Roan, Orin, and Lark as they leave the village and seek Mareton’s prince who has been kidnapped and about to be sacrificed in order to make it rain. Will they find him in time?

I am very proud of some of the artwork in the book. Also I would like to announce that this issue is also special, because it is Maria’s first writing credit. I will be talking about how the creation of this book was a little different than the creation of previous ones later in the week as well as how character’s grow over a series.

Release Schedule:

On October 10th through November 10th, we will be starting a kickstarter campaign for the cost of printing with some awesome reward tiers so look for updates on that.

Beta reading will end on October 31st.

After the campaign ends, I will be sending it to the printer in order to have it ready for Emerald City Comic Con 2013. It will be available on trade paperback and digital with extras on CD or download. The webcomic will restart the first weekend of January. Also at Emerald City Comic Con we will be having a raffle of some original character artwork of Lark and Orin each day of the convention.

More information to come….