Rotsterarsil - The Wheel

1.1 Pages 16-17

mleiv — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:57:53 +0000

And meet Finnar, all growed up. This story is probably more about him than he'd ever like you to know (which is one of the reasons I included it, ha). And his character won't be coming back for a few chapters, alas. But rest assured that he has many more pages coming, annoying the hell out of everyone else whilst looking really fine. :)

So here ends Issue #1. Issue #2 will start next Monday with completely different characters and location. Because that's the way I roll.

Free Comic Book Day 2012

mleiv — Sat, 05 May 2012 01:00:57 +0000

I'm giving away all my digital copies for FREE today only to celebrate Free Comic Book Day!

The Locked Maze (normally $3.00)
Rotsterarsil 1.1 (normally $1.50)

All orders are processed by a human (so there is a delay!). Please enter a valid email address. All other information can be empty/garbage.

1.1 Pages 14-15

mleiv — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:12:33 +0000

Page 15

Next week Issue 1.1 ends (since I can't figure any good way to split the last two page spread), and I will start in on 1.2 the week following. There will probably be a sizable gap between 1.2 and 1.3, since 1.3 is half again as long, and I have another project distracting me (which I will hopefully be able to start talking about by then). But at least you will have another 3 months of updates!

Page 14

Let us never speak of this past week again. :P

I have been busy all day catching up drawing some old pages for my art journal (and taking artistic liberties with the truth, hoho). I am so neglectful. My sketchbook hasn't been cracked open in ages also. I would lecture myself on this laziness, but I can assure you that the quantity of lecturing pointed my way has more than filled my yearly quota, so let's all not lecture mle for the next eight months, k? There might be screaming.

Also, wow. Only two weeks left. Good thing 1.2 is already done. Dunno when I will find the time to do 1.3 though.

1.1 Pages 12-13

mleiv — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:47:26 +0000

Page 13

Note: I am AFK for the next week, so I have to post this page early.

I changed my lettering style for 1.2, and now all the lettering of 1.1 looks terrible to me. This is a good thing, right? I am also taking notes now WHILE I draw the pages, because I can't remember what I was thinking two months later.

Page 12

Favorite panel? #6, the one on the right, two down. Perfect posing. Frustrating that it is so easy when the characters are so small and vague, but the moment I try to zoom in, poof, all posing becomes bad. :/

1.1 Pages 10-11

mleiv — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:58:35 +0000

The Author/Illustrator MLEIV

mleiv — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 03:08:14 +0000

My real name is Emily Ivie. MLEIV is an abbreviation I acquired when I was a kid (M-L-E I-V). I could have gone with the palindrome EIVIE, but, meh, I liked mleiv more.

Despite being passionate about art from childhood, I have no real training in art (no more than a couple art classes in high school and college). There are almost no artists in my family line, and so there wasn't a lot of encouragement to pursue it. My family is full of writers, though: I grew up surrounded by books, with sisters who wrote nonstop and who loved fantasy as much as I did. I never won any ribbons for art at my high school, but I have a box full of medals from all the literary prizes! (Which should tell you how important it is to be the best writer in your high school: i.e., NOT AT ALL. :P ) All my brothers and my dad work with computers, so I picked that up too, and those skills have proved easier to sell to the real world, even if the work is somewhat less satisfying to my creative mind.

This is my second comic book. The first one was The Locked Maze.

Influences

My artistic influences include Mucha, Disney, Brian Froud, Michael Whelan, Trina Schart Hyman, Mercer Mayer (Sleeping Beauty), Edward Gorey, and all the webcomics I have been reading of late. My literary influences can be found here.

Tools

I work on a very old ModBook (a slate-style modified Apple MacBook that has a tablet added behind the screen to mimic the behavior of a Wacom Cintiq) and I use Adobe Photoshop to draw and Adobe Illustrator to letter and lay out panels. At some point I mean to add a tutorial on deviantArt about this, but the basics are that in order to draw on such a bitty screen, one has to become a painter, not a sketch artist. I draw in very rough shapes and then narrow in on the details over time, slowly dropping my brush size and increasing my opacity (and deleting older layers as I go), until I reach a cleanly inked page. Then I go back up to a big brush and low opacity and add the color in using the same process.

Locations

I currently live in Seattle, WA.

You can also connect with me on:

Webcomics Panel March 29

mleiv — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:20:44 +0000

If you haven't heard, my comic, The Locked Maze is being featured at the Henry Art Gallery's webcomics exhibit now through June 30th.

The gallery is also hosting a pre-ECCC panel this Thursday, March 29th, at 7:00pm. It is free for students and only $5 for everyone else. I will be there, although probably frozen in fear and mute with horror at the crowds (they are putting a MIC on me... eek!), and I will bring lots of free bookmarks and prints, so be sure to say hi after! :)

Formatting Change

mleiv — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:41:38 +0000

I've been dissatisfied with the one page display, because I drew all the pages as two-page spreads and they just don't look right on their own that way. So I am changing over to a two-page display. However, I will continue posting at the pace of half a spread each week (I am not fast enough otherwise!). On odd-page weeks, you won't get a new web page, just the full-spread update to the prior week's image.

I made some minor changes to the site to accommodate the new sizing, but it's a hack job at present. I will do something more permanent when 1.2 is out.

1.1 Pages 8-9

mleiv — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:35:19 +0000

So... we have our first bit of magic. Which no one even really notices, barring our little boy Finnar. :)

And there is news this week: Webcomics Panel Thursday, March 29.

1.1 Pages 6-7

mleiv — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:20:50 +0000

This is my least favorite page in the entire comic. I didn't storyboard any of the pages in the beginning, because I was struggling so much to find my way into the story, period. Instead, I started with the splash pages I knew I wanted to draw, and figured I could drop character panels on top of them later. In most cases, that worked fine, but on this page it completely disrupts the flow of the scene and the panels just look totally out of place.

Still, as I remind myself every time this happens, I am not interesting in making each page perfect. It is more important to move on and keep telling the story.