Tim Artfully Demonstrates the General Mood of Big Time Attic During MicroCon

Good Ol' Green Lantern

Doin' some sketches this morning, and I thought I'd draw Abin Sur (Oh YOU know, Abin Sur, the former Green Lantern of sector 2814 who, as he lay dying, gave his ring to ace test pilot Hal Jordan, the SILVER AGE Green Lantern? Of course, you say. Of course).

This is from a panel from Green Lantern #16 (1962), drawn by Gil Kane and Joe Giella. It was written by John Broome, too, but I didn't faithfully recreate the dialogue. Or even paraphrase it accurately. So it goes.

The big news is that I colored this with the help of a flatting plugin for Photoshop. Flatting is the process of selecting individual areas in a picture so that you can color them in. It's time-consuming and not terribly creative, and most colorists farm it out to other people who can do it quickly. And the thing about flatting is that the whole time you're doing it, you think to yourself, "Shouldn't there be a computer program that does this for me?" I always thought the answer was no, but it's heck yes.

So here's what you do: Download the two plugins, "Multifill" and "Flatten" from Boudewijn Pelt's website, decompress them, and put them into your plugin folder that's wherever Photoshop is on your hard drive. Then:

1. get your bitmap art to where you want it (with hard edges, no grays or antialiasing).
2. make file RGB or CMYK (however you like it) and make 2 identical layers of the lineart.
3. run "Multifill" on one layer, which will fill all the white spaces with different colors.
4. run "Flatten" on that same layer, which will extend all colors toward each other and eliminate the black on that layer.
5. Voila! Black on one layer, color on another!

A little preemptive troubleshooting:
1. One problem with step 4 sometimes is that the colors will be so dark that "Flatten" reads them as black, and eliminates them. If you select the lineart, then inverse the selection (selecting all the colors) and lighten them, you won't have that problem.
2. The program is (obviously) very literal, so a) any areas that are left open (my characters' eyes always have this issue) are colored the same color as the area around them, and b) any areas that are crosshatched or textured in pen or brush will be a maelstrom of horrible websafe blobs. In either case, you'll need to do a little touching up here and there to get things the way you want it, but the time you save will be unbelievable.

Enjoy!

2 much m3b!

And now a super-special double-sized strip of "My 3 Bosses" ... (or rather, both this week's and last week's ... at once!! ... sort of!!!) WARNING: Events depicted within may or may not be true, accurate, reliable or funny.

Max copes.

4/21/06

Spring has indeed sprung here in Minneapolis, and the BTA is most surely feeling it. If you haven't noticed the blog posts have been a bit scarce as of late, due to constant jogs, logs (rides that is), bicycle rides, football throwings, sprinkler running throughings, and bungee jumpings. YES, we're active again! But in the real world as opposed to this cold unforgiving land you so love to call the "virtual world." Forgive us please, we'll be out of breath soon, and it will eventually get dark. We don't like to be outside the safe walls of our studio when the hobos come a callin'.

YEEESSS! SWEET NEW "MAPUSAURUS" DINOSAUR DISCOVERED!

Canadian scientist Dr. Philip Currie has unveiled the sweetest dinosaur ever, the Mapusaurus. Click here for the awesome details.



To Dr. Currie, Big Time Attic offers this artistic reconstruction of Mapusaurus and the now-diminutive T-Rex.

Happy Dyngus Day

Dyngus Day : The day after Easter Sunday. Men would chase women around with buckets of water and the women would hit them with switches. From a viewer: this tradition began in Poland, and involved pussy willows.*

Click Here for your very own Dyngus Day coloring sheet.

Just wanted to reassure everyone

... despite the lack of My Three Bosses yet today (and in by no means is this meant to be in lieu of that delightful strip) and despite the sad dearth of blog updates ...

Big Time Attic at Flashbelt

We're excited as heck to be a guest at the Flashbelt interactive conference! We'll don the jumpsuits for a workshop on animation. Go to Flashbelt.com and click SPEAKERS AND WORKSHOPS then SELECT A SPEAKER to find out more.

Meg Ashling Solo Shows

I'm not sure if we were joking or serious when we said that she has a voice unheard in 100 years but I want anyone who's up for it to come check out Meg Ashling at the 331 club this Saturday. She's just starting to play more solo shows and probably wouldn't mind some audience.

Check out Meg's Music

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM SIEVERT

Jury Duty

Because of certain ... ahem ... legal ... things ... which are taking up my time, and because I'm house-sitting for someone who doesn't have a scanner, and thanks to my very advanced, electro-powered paper with digicrafting technology, I have done this week's M3B entirely on the computer! I hope you enjoy the confusing line-weight quality as much as I did!

The first blogs of spring.

A few friends of the ol' BTA have started blogging, check them out.

Sam Hiti
King Mini
Rob Blogfoot

A battle well fought

I truly hope that everyone had as much fun at the Jam War as I did. I thought all the teams did a great job and seemed like they were having a good time, which is what war is all about anyway.

Eisner Nomination

CONGRATULATIONS to Kevin and Zander for being part of the 24 Hour Comics Day Anthology that was nominated for an Eisner Award (we're required to say "the Oscars of Comics")

ANNND let's not forget Minneapolis cartoonin' pal Quillan Roe. Nice job guys!

Oh..and Gene Ha and Zak Sally were nominated for two awards each. Congrats!

Open Studio TONGHT

The first Thursday of the month is here and we're (from now on) taking part on the Nordeast Minneapolis tradition of open studio. So stop by between 7pm and whenever and say hello, see what we're working on, and drink something.

The Minneapolis chapter of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy has their monthly comic jam right downstairs, so take part in that too!

You can keep track of BTA Events on our Myspace Calendar:

BIG TIME ATTIC ON MYSPACE

Jam War Minneapolis

Here's a group shot of the Jam War participants in Minneapolis. It's missing Toft, Avidor, and Steinlicht from Team Geriatric who were at the bar before their pens dropped.

The further adventures of those other employees

If I were Viacom, I would maybe dedicate a couple channels ...

Jam War Troop Profiles!

Good evening, patriotic supporters! As a token of our sincere appreciation of all that you've done to ration supplies, buy bonds, and give us your heartfelt encouragement, here's a quick interactive dossier of your favorite troops' profiles! Just roll your cursor over the name to read more.

The Home Team

photo by David Steinlicht

Combatants.

The other Minneapolis Jam War Teams:


Team STANK! and the Roe Family Cartoonists.


Team Peacemeal


Team Geriatric


Team Crowbeasts


Team Teufel Katzen

Frontline Images

Strike Force Bravo Tango Alpha captain Zander Cannon in howling commando pose.


Strike Force Bravo Tango Alpha member Max Konrardy with a pacifist smile.


Inside the Fighting Hellcat bunker.


Fighting Hellcat team leader Kevin Cannon.


Fighting Hellcat command center.

Shots Fired!

The theme, a groaner throwback cliche' standing as a symbol of everything that is wrong with comics and possibly cementing that future comics jam wars are "nerds only," has been chosen and released to us "There's an Alien in the Comics Shop."

http://www.comicsjamwar.com/