Hello everyone and welcome to my webcomic/webmanga “Pierre the Baking Cat“!
“Pierre the Baking Cat“, or just “Pierre” for short, is a very special project to me, because it originally started as a script for a children’s book.
It was the second book I had ever written, and I was very excited about this new idea for a story I had come up with.
Unfortunately, Sweden is a very difficult country to get published in – especially if you’re a newcomer like me! And as with my first book I wrote (which I also haven’t got published), I just couldn’t find a publisher for Pierre …
After recieving letter after letter of rejection from the publishers, I felt very discouraged and, of course, very disappointed. ‘Why won’t anyone publish this great story!?’, I thought.
I had no other choice but to let it rest.
Then, one sunny summer day, I was sitting in my garden and thinking of all this, what I could have done wrong and what I could have done differently. That is when I got this other idea.. If I can’t get Pierre published as a book, how about as a comic? Better yet, as a MANGA!
New ideas started to swarm inside my head and soon after I had my sketchbook and pencil ready and started to think up new characters for the comic … And that’s how it started!
I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve NEVER made a comic in my whole life, and I couldn’t even imagine how much work that goes into making one. This is my current workflow, just to give you an idea:
1. Rough sketch on paper. Here’s where I try to decide on panel layout, where characters will be positioned etc.
2. Detailed sketch of the above.
3. Scan the sketch
4. Ink the sketch in Photoshop and/or ‘Easy Paint Tool SAI’, seriously guys, get this program! It’s awesome!
5. Add screentones in Photoshop and/or SAI.
6. Add wordballoons, panel outlines, and other text in Illustrator.
7. Done! (Phew!)
Sweet jesus, that’s a lot of work for just one page! Does everyone go through these steps when making comics??
Well, I don’t have any friends or other contacts that make comics (or even remotely know how to draw..), I have no one to ask about anything … so I’ve been forced to learn everything from scratch, on my own :(
I’m still trying to figure out how to make the process more quick and efficient, and I’ve actually made some some good progress with my extremely cheap steel nib pen, hehe. It goes SO MUCH FASTER than inking with a computer it’s not even funny. Of course, I do some clean-up after I’ve scanned it, but that’s a minor problem.
Anyways, I hope you will enjoy Pierre as much as I do drawing it and if you feel extra generous – and I hope you do (^>^) – you can help me keep this project alive by donating.
Your donations will not only help me keep this project alive, it will also help me cover other expenses like materials, the domain and so on. Come on people, an artist’s gotta eat damnit! (*^O^*)
Thank you so much for reading and for your support!
/Tommy Elfving, SWEDEN
