I don’t know if I want to do another recording like this again for a while. It’s hard enough for me to get anything done without the feeling that someone is watching over my shoulder.

Now, if only I could work this fast in realtime…

@Mausoom: To answer your question, it takes anywhere from an hour to a whole day to do the artwork for one strip– but not nearly as long as my appalling lack of consistency might suggest…

It probably has something to do with me making images like this:

Also, exams in the form of little colored squares.

This week, I’m going to talk about Blender’s composite node editor.

It’s awesome! You should never render an image in blender without tweaking it in the node editor. Node based post-processing is superior to post-processing in a regular image manipulation program for a number of reasons: It’s non-linear, non-destructive, and it handles color in 32-bit floating point values.

You can also use it to make an image that looks like a map of the London Underground:

Allow me to explain this madness…

After flattening the character shots onto the softened background (more on that later), I get an image, part of which looks like this:

That’s prior to all the other post-pro. Kind of bland, right?

Right. So then, I blur the image, and overlay it onto the original. This is a popular method known as the “instant sex” effect.

Next (and here’s the clever part), I take the alpha channel, reverse it, blur it, and use it to overlay a yellow tint:

Then I do some some color curves…

And that’s it. No GIMP or Photoshop required.

But wait! The glow effect that I applied in the third step kind of drowned out Proc and Fizzik in the last shot:

So I make a quick garbage matte in the texture window:

And use that to diminish the glow effect.

See how “easy” that was? Next week, I’ll explain how a single corrupted pixel caused this weekend’s comic to be delayed by 24 hours.

I’m sorry, did I say “dog?” I meant “blog”…

“Sure Sam, it’s cute now, but do you have any idea how big this thing is going to get? What if it dies?”

I know, I know… taking care of a blog is a big responsibility, but I promise I’ll update it, feed it, and pick up its spam.

So, what do you say? Can I keep it? Please?

Half of it will just be about Claes Oldenburg.

A few weeks ago, I found a piece of illustration board that somebody had left on my studio desk. It was completely slathered in brown paint, with splotches of green. I was about to toss it out when I realized that it might actually be someone’s project. Honestly, I couldn’t tell whether it was just a piece of scrap for wiping paintbrushes, or a masterpiece in experimental texture and abstract color composition.

Either way, it’s mine now. I’m getting that motherfucker framed.