Baby Steps Closer...

So the other day my dad and I went to the local police station to pick up a Police Character report as required by the Embassy of the Philippines for my visa. I have to say it was a thoroughly depressing place, though my dad assures me it's "much better now".

It didn't take long to get the character report thankfully, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to find that we didn't have to grease a few palms to get it. Still, my dad recommended we thank them for their effort, we ended up getting them a bottle of non-alcoholic wine and a tin of Danish cookies.

Everybody wins!

The NDLEA's Got It Out For Me!

Not Really. The NDLEA is the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency, I have to get a report from them, and the police department, and a doctors note to get a Filipino visa, just a lot of bother really. The Embassy of the Philippines is located in Abuja, so I'll have travel up there for a couple of days this month to pick the visa up. Hopefully I should have some lovely pics of the PI up on the blog in the next month or so.

In other news Orishas is officially on hold. My move to the PI will make it rather difficult to coordinate with Bolaji, as a result I'll probably end up doing the artwork on that myself. Jonah's still a go at the moment though, as I said in my last post I recently finished the script for Volume One, Jupiter Jonah and the Eye of Oduduwa. I've sent it over to Shane to have a look at and we should be starting art production on it sometime soon (pretty excited).

In other news, the fast food joint near where I live has started offering pizza, it's really, really fresh and pretty darn good.

The script for Jupiter Jonah is finished!

A few days ahead of schedule no less! I'd set a deadline of February 2nd (my 26th birthday) to get it done, I never really thought I'd make it but it seems I did! Now I've just got a few loose ends to tie up and I'll be sending it over to my partner Shane Mcdermott to have a look at.

In other news it looks like I'll be moving to the Philippines at the end of February. Yup, it came as a surprise to me as well but the videogame website I work for, QJ.net wants me to head over there (where the main offices are located) and take charge of editorial, which is extremely exciting to say the least.

Two More Tests

Just before Christmas BJ gave me a new pair of drawings to practice coloring with, I've been thinking about ditching the method I was using before, and this is the result. Personally I like it much better, I'm still struggling with making text bubble shapes look right, but it's getting better I think. I suppose I should add that the font used is just placeholder, and that the images aren't from our comic "Orishas" but rather from something BJ was working on a few years ago. Also I made up the script to match what goes on in the images... Stan Lee style! (I'm just kidding Mr. Lee)

Also, I've been working hard on Jupiter Jonah, the script's coming along wonderfully, it's been a while since I've had so much fun writing and I hope it shows in the final product. I know I promised I'd have a synopsis for Orisha's by now, but I promise it's comin' real soon.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year everyone!

Mince Pies Baby! MINCE PIES!

It's Christmas Eve here and I'm chowing down on homemade mince pies and sipping on Amarula, hoping against hope I got a PlayStation 3 controller so I can nail some insurgent scumbags in Call of Duty 4. I'm also typing the script for Jupiter Jonah, somewhere around page 9 at the moment, it's going rather well.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Love,

Shobo.

Oh My Grud!

These are some ball point pen sketches BJ made of three of the major Orishas in the Yoruba pantheon, Olorun, the Sky God, Olokun, Goddess of the Seas and Marshes, and Esu, the Trickster. They were done a little while back, and their designs have changed a wee bit since then, but these will most likely be at the back of the book in "making of" section, plus I felt like sharing since it's been a while. I've included a short excerpt from the novel's bible, though that's unlikely to be seen by anyone but myself really. It just gives a little background on these characters.

"At the birth of the universe were the twin consciousnesses Olorun, and his sister Olokun. For an age Olorun and Olokun were a balance with each other, until the birth of Esu, a child-like trickster who introduced an unstable element to the cosmic equation. A rift soon grew between Olorun and Olokun, thanks in no small part to the machinations of their younger sibling. This rift grew in emotional intensity till it became manifest in physical form. Within a single day the ether became sky and space and sea. Olorun became the keeper of the sky, Olokun dwelled in the murky seas, and Esu floated in the space between and paid both frequent visits to torment his brother and sister."

Okay, so that's it for now, I may fool around a bit with trying to color these images since BJ's still slacking off on getting some drawings done and instead seems to be consumed by "real work", pah! Also, I figure next time I might as well drop a synopsis for the first book since the script's pretty much done.

This one's a little late...

Should'a been out around Halloween, but working on the script for the graphic novel (which is now called Orisha's by the way) took precedence. Again this isn't anything from the actual graphic novel, it's just an image BJ sent over for me to practice coloring with.