Space Repair Garage: The Comic

[ninja_bait]

This is a comic I'm starting up.  New strips weekly.

This is the canon behind all my creations.  It is a mix of role-play adventures on the Space Police LEGO Message Boards, stories I built around my collection, and a lot of Star Wars names taken out of context.

Please enjoy!
But not too much.

001 by Jake Potter, on Flickr
002 by Jake Potter, on Flickr
003 by Jake Potter, on Flickr

[Omega Prime]

Nice art! I'd like to see more... the style is really nice!

[Duerer]

I really dig how accurate the drawings of these ships and fighters are.

[Colette]

Wow you have an amazing talent at drawing. Have you shown any of these to stubby/Rayhawk? He might be interested.

[Scratch]

Looking forward to seeing more of this.

[Quantumsurfer]

Ninja-bait strikes again.  Some people have all the talent.

[Arkbrik]

That looks super good, keep it up!

[stubby]

Wow you have an amazing talent at drawing. Have you shown any of these to stubby/Rayhawk? He might be interested.

These are a strong start. What's your process? Are you doing pencils first or just going straight to ink?

[BFenix]

Heck yeah, these are super clean! I always found that getting the right balance between making the Lego pieces seem legit while also 'alive' and with movement quite challenging, but you're nailing it. Keep it coming!

[Texhnophille]

This looks gorgeous, keep it up!

[Kommander Ken]

This is fantastic. The title design is my favorite.

[ninja_bait]

This is fantastic. The title design is my favorite.

Thanks!  Titles are my fetish.

Heck yeah, these are super clean! I always found that getting the right balance between making the Lego pieces seem legit while also 'alive' and with movement quite challenging, but you're nailing it. Keep it coming!

It must look better to you than it does to me    I still think the anatomy needs work.

These are a strong start. What's your process? Are you doing pencils first or just going straight to ink?

Uhhh... "pencils" and "ink" are kind of generous terms for what I'm doing.  I start with rough sketches in non-photo blue and then finalize all the details with a fine point sharpie.



Crosspost to Minifig of the Month for more backstory for Carde and Rick.

[BFenix]

Are you going to go for a story or any relation between the episodes? Or is each one going to be separate shorts like these?

[ninja_bait]

Are you going to go for a story or any relation between the episodes? Or is each one going to be separate shorts like these?

This is the start of a storyline.  I'll eventually circle back to the stories from the three "pilot episodes."  I think the comic will start to gel as it progresses, but it's hard to tell from here.

[stubby]

It must look better to you than it does to me    I still think the anatomy needs work.

I've hired and worked with a bunch of Lego comics artists over the last decade or two. Believe me, your grasp of minifig anatomy is way better than a lot of the professionals I've art directed.

What really stands out to me is your staging. For some reason it's hard to find comics artists nowadays who want to do anything other than dull two-heads-talking-against-a-flat-background frames, but even in the frames where you're not going into super detail it's clear that you're thinking about the 3D space the characters are inhabiting and being deliberate about how you place the viewpoint within that space. It's one of those things that you wouldn't think was a rare quality, but it is.

Uhhh... "pencils" and "ink" are kind of generous terms for what I'm doing.  I start with rough sketches in non-photo blue and then finalize all the details with a fine point sharpie.

That's as much as I do a lot of the time, although I'm doing the digital version.

If there's one thing I'd suggest for a next step, once you get them to this level you should go back in with the same sharpie to reinforce some of the lines. That'll help separate the object edges from the textures and add some line weight variation.

(If there's two things, I'd next suggest trying out some hard blacks to pop your characters and composition, but that's a much bigger commitment.)

Spoiler: show