Comic sneak peek & release info

Finally it’s done. One would think a short comic that can be read so quickly would also not take long to create. Wrong.
Well, I admit I went back and forth at some point to do corrections and adjustments where I thought they were needed until I was finally satisfied. I am very happy with the result. So today let me introduce you to the comic briefly. I’ll also share some snippets for you to get a sense of what it looks like.

Facts & Release

This comic has 8 pages and I count it to my Skymir series. However it is not directly related to any of my previous stories. It only takes place in the same universe.
It was supposed to be part of the next U-Comix magazine but something got in the way. That something is called Covid-19. The apocalypse happened and the main selling spots for the magazine became pretty much unavailable. So it was decided that instead of the magazine there is (or are?) going to be an online issue namely “Corona-Comic-CARE-Paket”.
I thought that’s a nice idea and finished my work to have it published for that cause instead. Maybe I’ll get another comic printed with their next physical issue 🙂

The Corona-Comic-CARE-Package should be released online any time soon, supposedly in the beginning of June. I’ll keep you updated here.

This was all talking about the German version of the comic. I will soon translate it into English, work on a cover illustration and publish it on the Artstation Marketplace. About that I will keep you updated too, of course and let you know when it’s out and ready.

Now, let’s get to the part where I show you some pictures!
Those of you who follow me on Instagram probably saw some of these. In another entry I already talked about the characters and shown you their concept designs. By now they both have names (fanfares!).

This is Valdis, she works for the Dellingur military on a cargo ship.

This is Isa, somehow she is on the same ship. But why?

And here is the ship.

I hope you enjoyed this little preview of my comic. Stay tuned for updates, and keep safe and healthy everyone!

When I started doing pixel art

Once upon a time I did pixel art. I started doing it again and that’s what made me want to write today’s entry.
Unfortunately I don’t have prove in form of my ancient pixel art but I do have my memory to tell you about it.

Once upon a time when it wasn’t standard for everyone to have their own home computer, I was one of those people. As a child and up to my teens I didn’t have a PC. One of my friends had one which actually belonged to her dad. But she was allowed a half hour per day. And sometimes me and one or two other friends would come over to her place and use the internet together to collect stuff about our favourite games.

At that time I did have a computer but no internet and I brought my own floppy disks to safe what I found. And mostly I was collecting cute animated gifs of my favourite characters.

I got my first own PC assembled by my mom’s boyfriend at that time. It wasn’t really because he was such a nice guy who wanted to do me a favor. I am pretty sure he just didn’t want me to constantly occupy his PC. I had discovered MS paint and learned how to do some pixel art there on my own. Later on I tried doing digital paintings with MS paint and just the mouse. I was pretty proud of them at that time.

Why I started doing pixel art again

For fun, to be honest. I find it pretty relaxing and I love the limitations it comes with. I do art often and though I do really enjoy it, paid or not, I don’t just draw what ever I want as I used to when I was a kid. Back then I just drew what ever I felt like and it just came to me. Now I always have project or specific goal in mind that I am working towards, even for my personal projects.

Through retro games I sort of came back to try pixel art last year. Not intensely, just sometimes I did something here and there. And I am doing it on a hobby level, I am not planning to get anywhere with it career-wise.

Through retro games I sort of came back to try pixel art last year. Not intensely, just sometimes I did something here and there. And I am doing it on a hobby level, I am not planning to get anywhere with it career-wise.

I am pretty excited to have started doing some more this week, together with my girlfriend. I am happy that we can share that now.

March Of Robots: The End

March Of Robots: Time

The end already. The last robot that I drew for the challenge, which you can see above, is very representative again.

Yep, I got so far behind that I gave up. There were already many things on my plate, in my work- and personal life. I didn’t seem to be able to keep up with my own schedules and I had to give those other things priority.

Project updates

It is a pity that it didnt work out for me this year with the March Of Robots, which was supposed to be the first time for me to participate. But its okay. Things needed to be done and I can now fully focus on my projects again. I didnt even find time for my personal project Skymir lately, but I will get back to it eventually. I am looking forward to get my new ideas for it out there and to have Hilda, Yngvild and Bjolan go adventuring again.

It will be new, it will be different, but Im sure its gonna be pretty cool 😀 Once I have the short story for Ucomix finished I should be able to make some free time to work on Skymir on the side again. And the short comic was supposed to be finished by the end of this month. I am hoping to get it done this week, if nothing unexpected keeps me away from it.

The Interior Design for my Comic

As promised today I am gonna talk about the interior for my comic. Which I built a 3D model for, like I did for the outside of spaceship that I showed to you in my last entry.
Above you can see how I used it for the comic. It’s still all drawn but yes – it is traced over the model. Which is coming in really handy.

Why it’s so good to have a 3D model

To me it’s worth building models of hard-surface things, especially when they are complex. This guarantees me to have the perspective on point, objects where they belong (always in the same spot from every possible viewpoint) and it makes the drawing process faster. Even though this model took me quite a while to finish too. If I ever need this for another project again, I won’t have to worry about it anymore. I could even fill one of the empty rooms with something else for another purpose. For example someone’s office or a bedroom for the crew. Convinient, isn’t it? This is especially useful when you’re drawing a comic.

I am by no means an expert in doing 3D models. I do have some skills with it but I am still learning. I want to become much better at it to be able to make a model of anything!

Some views from inside the ship

  • Insert your card here
  • Where am I going?
  • Where might this door lead to?
  • This is just one hallway

The last image shows the view into a storage room in which most of the story is taking place. I did not model the objects in it myself, except one which I can not show you because it’s a (mild) spoiler.

Just as last time I uploaded this model to Sketchfab which is also where I took those screenshots. I’ll embed the model below to end this entry. Feel free to rotate the model and have a look around!

Spaceship Interior by Miriam Esdohr on Sketchfab

The Spaceship Design for my Comic

So I finally started working on one of the comic projects. Starting with the short story one which is going to take place in the world of Skymir (which is my personal project). That means it is SciFi and also Fantasy.

As I mentioned in this post about the story’s main characters and their designs I did 3D models that are supposed to make the drawing part easier later. To be exact I did two models and to be even more exact, this is not a spaceship, or at least not used as such. It is an airship. I’ll tell you about the other model in a bit.

Now to the “spaceship” or airship model. It is low poly and supposed to serve merely as a base sketch. So here is not all too much detail or anything but it is good enough to work with.

A screenshot that I took on Sketchfab
Another screenshot.

I put the wireframe (those funny blue lines) on so that it’ll make it easier for me to spot where windows, panels and such go exactly. Below I embedded the model directly from Sketchfab so you can see it live and rotate it to your liking 😀

low poly cargo ship by Miriam Esdohr on Sketchfab

And this is what I made of it. It’s an actual panel from the comic. The comic itself is going to be in greyscale. In my last comic I relied on colors a lot, even though they were still a little monochromatic. I wanted to help the publisher save costs for some goodies that theyy were planning. I take it as an opportunity to try something different with those limitations. As you may guess I am aiming for something high in contrast.

The other 3D model I made is the inside of the ship that most of the story takes place in. It is more detailled and complex than this one, so I’ll safe that for another entry.
I set my schedule to posting every Monday and Friday!

March Of Robots 2020 #3 / Don’t panic

Oh, it’s been a while. The last time I didn’t know yet that there was gonna be this epidemic and that people would hoard toilet paper and pasta. But here we are. I am fine and I hope you are too. The social distancing part goes rather easy on me, I like hermitting anyway.

Yet I managed to fall waaaaay behind with those robots. I’m going to post some anyway and I’ll try to catch up again. But I’ve also started one of the two comics and there is another project I’ve been asked to work on. Which I sure want to do! Plus, let’s not forget about my personal project Skymir, involving Hilda, Yngvild and Bjolan. I’m craving to go on with it but right now there are too many things that require to be tended first. Also in my personal life. But I have lots of ideas and ambitions.

March Of Robots: Tool

My “tool” entry might not be the most interesting, but it was fun to do anyway 🙂

March Of Robots: Bomb

“Bomb” is so far my favourite, I must say. I am pretty satisfied with the result. Poor little robot though…

March Of Robots: Substance

Now “substance” is somewhat different. I’m giving credit to my beloved girlfriend and her ideas and to my friend Luís for providing me with reference photos.

I shall post more. I’ve also been playing some stuff on the side, really not that much but I took screenshots. And then there are still the 3D models I’ve made. So there are things to blog about. I’ll put a reminder in my phone so I stop forgetting to post! That should work.

Don’t panic (Covid-19)

I wish everyone and their loved ones strength and health and remember to be careful. Always wash your hands properly, keep distance from people and such.
And please do not hoard toilet paper and stuff. There are other people who need things too. So please be considerate. Don’t panic, that won’t help anyone and only leads to bad decisions.

March Of Robots 2020 #2

Here comes the second set of robots for the March Of Robots challenge. I fell one day behind though. Maybe I can catch up over the weekend, I’ll see. I put more time than planned into the “shock” prompt. But since it is a challenge I wanted to do exactly that – challenge myself -, in that case not just with the robot but also with the lighting.

March Of Robots: Shock

For the following one I wanted to do my friend a favor by doing a “happy” robot, he said not all of my robots can be depressed. Well, technically they can, and they’re not all depressed. But not happy either, that is true. So I made this happy robot for “three”.

March Of Robots: Three

The next one is what I did yesterday, actually day five. The prompt is “island” and I did the next best thing that came to my mind, which was a coconut. When I started drawing it I was already very tired from a day full of work. I am at another 3D model currently and it is at least almost finished now. I just felt like doing nothing but at the same time I didn’t want to fall behind further. So decided to draw the island robot anyway and just tried to make it a little simpler to not spend too much time on it. That might be one reason why the cocobot is making that face, more likely though it is but a representation of myself when I drew this.

One of these days I also want to share the other things I’ve been working on meanwhile, which are the 3D models. Two so far, one being a little more complex. But it will help me tons when I draw that comic, I might even likely re-use them for other projects. I’ll start with the comic next week as soon as possible.

March Of Robots 2020 #1

This year I’m finally doing it! I wanted to join the March Of Robots challenge since three years already I think but somehow I always managed to miss it. But not this year! Also let me predict that this is going to be a really good one for me.

So today is day three of the challenge and the prompt is “shocked”. But I haven’t done it yet.
What I did do though are day one and two, I did them both on the iPad Pro in Procreate.

Above is my entry for “chunky”. I tried to make it a quick one by not investing too much time into shading and different colors and such. It is based on some machine part that I found online. This is actually a thing I like to do. I look up machine parts and make them into something else.

This second robot is for day two “danger”. So this one can tape and spread panic. But it mostly does the latter. I really had fun with this one, I’m starting to get the hang of it. And I got the feeling that all of my robots are going to turn out cute…

Comic Character Concept Art

So currently I am working on comics again. The first that I am tending to at the moment because its deadline comes first is going to be a short story of eight pages.
It took me a while until I was satisfied with the characters. I was also playing around with style a little bit but most of the things went to trash. Today I’ll post here what I have left to show.

Above are the finished character designs. Their names will remain secret for now and the story needs to be named still. I’ll sure come up with something when I started with the actual comic pages and fleshing out the story. There are still some concept designs that need to be done, mainly a vehicle and a creature, but no spoilers.

Earlier stages

This is basically the design I went with now. I wanted something practical and unisex looking for this one. In the story this character is a soldier on patrol, but inside.

For the second character I wanted a more oriental and feminine look. The hair is inspired by the 20’s hairstyles for women. I might change it a little bit in the comic, especially for when it has to move in motion or wind and stuff I might have to add some strains or something.

Albert Nobbs Drawings

I live! It lives, the social media! Or at least I am reviving mine right now. It was quiet, very quiet, if not too quiet.

I deleted all my old blog entries and starting over here. I’ll try to post more often than I used to.
“Didn’t she intend to try that a couple of times already?” – yepp. And I have a plan to make it work now. I’ll just write about whatever I want, not about what I think I am expected to write about.

Recently I read about the deadness of blogs. Who still reads blogs? Maybe nobody. And surely not a lot of text. Well, how good that I usually have colorful (mostly at least) pictures.

I’ll begin with something I started in December. Something that was just for warming up and fun.
One of the movies that I watched with my beloved was Albert Nobbs. I’ve been wanting to watch that one since a while. Now I finally did and really liked it a lot.
But poor Mister Nobbs… sigh.