The Journey of EWG - Day 2 of 5
By Eryck Webb and Kristina Webb
Today we look back at the many changes that occurred with EWG in its second year, both professionally and personally.
2010-2011: Business Booms
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| Refined the original 'splash logo' for a more 'corporate' look. |
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| EWG's first Tshirt graphic commission. |
I slowly began penciling directly in Photoshop instead of on Bristol board and inked in Photoshop as well. The coloring style improved as I explored new techniques for rendering shades and highlights. Unless specifically requested by a client, artwork was done digitally and the client was emailed an 8.5x11 300 dpi piece. During this year, EWG was posting ebay auctions and deviant art job ads everyday. When a new artwork was finished, and the client didn't object, I posted the new art on deviant art, Facebook and used it as examples in future ebay auctions. Almost daily something new was posted and this eventually got the attention of comic writers and people who needed t-shirt graphics. The capacity of Eryck Webb Graphics went from simple pencil drawings to providing a much bigger variety of creative services.
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| EWG's 200th Ebay commission piece. |
While late 2010 saw me still doing pencil art sales and custom art commissions on ebay, early 2011 moved me into working on comic commissions, t-shirt commissions and more. This expansion of commission services all happened while migrating away from ebay entirely with digital art leading the way over traditional.
"I've been commissioning artwork from Eryck since 2007, in that time I've been lucky enough to get some really spectacular and inspiring pieces of art, but I've also gotten the privilege to see him evolve as an artist. I've gotten amazing logos from him, some neat character designs and a lot of imagination and creativity. I'm an Eryck Webb Graphics customer, but first and foremost I'm an Eryck Webb fan."
"I've been commissioning artwork from Eryck since 2007, in that time I've been lucky enough to get some really spectacular and inspiring pieces of art, but I've also gotten the privilege to see him evolve as an artist. I've gotten amazing logos from him, some neat character designs and a lot of imagination and creativity. I'm an Eryck Webb Graphics customer, but first and foremost I'm an Eryck Webb fan."
-Gary Buettner
Author of Monster Pets.
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| A year working on Possessed, my first webcomic commission, led me to move towards digital art production techniques that I use to this day. |
● Winter 2010 - This year saw EWG's first t-shirt graphic commission, from Horseshoes and Handgrenades for their trip to Dragon Con, dubbed the 'Face Melting' shirt.
● Winter 2010 - Commissioned to illustrate first two chapters of the graphic novel Cartel, adding to the previous 5 pages. These new pages were penciled/ inked digitally and the previous 5 that were done traditionally were digitally touched up.
● Winter 2010 - DeadStar Publishing in the UK wanted a short 8 page story in their anthology comic, 'Rising Stars Vol. 1'. The comic was "Accusations Among Thieves" - and it was my first published comic work. This project was penciled, inked and lettered digitally.
● Winter 2011 - The first two chapters of Cartel were completed and shelved, and a new graphic novel called 'Rayfield Scott' was commissioned by the same author. Within a few months of production on this project, it was canceled because the script had been bought by a film company.
● Spring 2011 - With Cartel shelved and Rayfield Scott canceled, the room was available to take on a new project with the same writer, a new graphic novel project called Lake Michigan Blues. It was a 120 page crime comic that would take about a year to draw start to finish.
● 2009-2011 - We lived in North Carolina from 2009 till Summer 2011. During this span I ran EWG from my bedroom in North Carolina.
● Spring 2011 - I proposed to Kristina a week after Easter and we moved to Pennsylvania. EWG was now run in my future in-laws basement in Pennsylvania during our engagement.
● Fall 2011 - 'Possessed, Collected Vol. 1' - My run on the webcomic 'Possessed' ended a couple months after the release of this collected volume of its first year. Creative differences ultimately led to the end of my run on this comic. But before that happened I was published for a second time in this very nice collected publication that I designed front to back. This 50+ pg compilation of the Possessed web comic spanned Eryck Webb's run on the series from 2010-2011. It was available in print and Ebook through Lulu.com. Though my run on this series lasted only a year, the influence it had on me digitally producing works would continue.
● Oct 22, 2011 - I married Kristina, my wonderful companion in love, life and business. We moved into our own house in Ohio from fall 2011 through fall 2012. I enjoyed an ideal second story corner studio space through fall, winter and spring. Then due to sun angle and heat in the summer moved to a back room on the first level which had its own nice views out the back windows. I worked here till 2012.
● I worked on Lake Michigan Blues graphic novel in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio until it was published later in 2012.
● All the while regular weekly art commissions and sales continued as the back-bone of EWG.
