Lookit:

It is shiny and lovely and a real, solid object. During the hardest parts of getting through making this issue, this was what I visualized: having the book in my hands, complete and beautiful. It’s a lovely thing to get to the horizon you’ve imagined.

Today was loads of fun. I’ll wander through the show tomorrow or Sunday, but today I talked to people and sold some Furloughs and got recognized from past conventions and generally had a very nice time. Afterward, I went to the Drink n’ Draw organized by the Bureau of Drawers, and we had a really great, varied crowd. Some of my favorite local cartoonist friends (I am too tired to link, sorry guys), and some from out of town who I was very happy to see. My friends and family are far-flung, here and there all across the U.S., so when any group I’m a part of gets something like together in one place, it makes me pretty happy. There was booze, there was drawing, and I got home later than I meant to but didn’t mind too much at all.

Friday was good. Now I need to complete the freebie Furlough promo thing I meant to do earlier and get myself to bed. And console the cats, who are very confused, as this was the longest I’ve been out of the house at one time since, oh, mid-January.

Confidential to the woman who bought the creativity zine from me last year and has since finished writing a BOOK (!!!): your compliment so overwhelmed me that I got a little flummoxed and lost my manners, so I didn’t ask your name. But what you said to me absolutely made my day, and it’ll make me happy to think about for a long time. Thank you.

In ways, the making of this cover is much like the way I drafted the rest of the book. Thumbnail in pencil, light sketch in blue pencil (a nearly devoured nub of a thing whose brand was sharpened away sometime in the last month), a more solid sketch in blue pencil (Turquoise Prismacolor drawing leads in a Koh-I-Noor Technigraph lead holder, HB but feels harder, so it makes me make more defined lines when I use it), and finally the inked drawing itself, done on fresh bristol over a light table.

The rest of the book is ink right on top of my penciled photo-blue lines, but page one and the covers, I did with the light table.

So here’s my rough sketch, based on the thumbnail I drew back in November or so.

Unlike some other pages, this image doesn’t date to when I originally wrote the script in late 2009, but it’s been pretty solid and consistent since I started editing the script for this issue.

Here’s the first, rougher pencil.

I darkened it in Photoshop so you could see what the hell I was talking about, but in person, it’s definitely lighter than pencil two.

As you can see, it’s much much tighter. I did take a photo reference for this, which I am not posting. No no no. It was really helpful, though – I would’ve never guessed that the center of the ribcage would stick out like that when someone was in this position. It also made me miss figure drawing, which I need to get back into. It helped when I was drawing this issue, and I didn’t go nearly as many times as I’d have liked.

I did two inked versions of this. The first had some freakish head stuff going on, and I messed up the couch cushions, so it is currently in my building’s recycling bin. This one is delightfully less mutated. Here, I’ve added the email screenshot inset and the lettering.

Rather lovely, no? I’m really happy with how it came out. It feels like the culmination of a solid month-plus spent drawing and doing little else. I inked with Higgins Black Magic Waterproof Ink (I’ve tried others and always wound up pissed off or disappointed), a Hunt 102 nib, and the larger silver kind that isn’t an A, B, or C something or other. I just tried to Google it and had no luck, so I’m just going to hope you know what I’m talking about.

So that’s page one. There are 35 others in Furlough 3, which is going to be an actual, physical object by Friday, which you can buy from me this weekend at the Emerald City Comicon. (Table M-27! Stop by! Bring friends!)

This week will be another mad rush of preparing, but after the slog of finishing this comic (which concluded with an 18-hour spree of page completion, lettering, and questioning the value of human life), it all seems like the easiest cake that ever did cake.

Here’s my piece at the Fantagraphics show:

Sweethearts #1, 5×7, ink and watercolor. One of a series of four. The other three of which I’ll post over the weekend. I signed it after I scanned it.

Pssst… I finished penciling Furlough last night. I’m going to start preliminary inking tonight – mainly panel borders, as I’m tired as hell and probably shouldn’t try to do anything in the way of nuance until I’ve slept for about twelve hours. I’m going to do a post in the next couple of weeks about my process for this one, since it changes with every project. This version involves two kinds of non-photo blue lead, drawing at 150 percent of the finished size, and (of course) ye olde inkpot and nibs. Plus I’m becoming a more confident penciler, so I’d rather like to show you that anyway.

The first is at Cafe Racer, and it opens Thursday, February 10th, 2011. Better, prettier information and flier to come once these things are in my hot little hands.

The second is at the Fantagraphics Bookstore. It’s called Lovesick, and you can see more, including the rad flier drawn by one of our number. It takes place Saturday, February 12th, as part of the third anniversary of the Georgetown Art Attack.*

I’m working on some complementary pieces, and I think I’m going to aim at making them into a set of prints. Here are a couple of my wee sketches for these.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of drawing lately. I’ve passed the halfway point of penciling Furlough 3 (AT LONG LAST, OH MY GOD, IT’S HAPPENING), and I’m doing a lot of other art too. Other art. Sounds a shade sinister when put that way, no? Here’s a pencil drawing I did at my art group last week.

So that’s me. Day job work + exercise + comicking + the occasional gulp of air – adequate sleep = the life of Breanne Boland, urban sophisticate and gal about town.

But you should have a larger life, one that includes going to galleries for fabulous-as-hell art shows. I hear it’s nice; report back.

*Doesn’t it sound like I’m inviting you to a vigil? I’m not, though.

Furlough two ended up in it, which is really exciting. Look!

See you at APE, guys!

I’ve tried to do this before. Back when I was finishing Furlough two, I thought I might do that issue’s lettering via tablet, thinking that Ctrl-Z might override my natural tendency toward scrawl. But something was not right, and the evening ended as they often did at that point, with a lot of swearing and a lot of changed plans.

Well! I was at my cartooning/illustration group last night, and after some settings wrangling with my friend Tom, we got it to work properly, and my new project is to draw a bit with this every day. Current benchmark of success: it looks like a drawing I might make with a pen. Next: coloring? Details? Textures? We’ll get there when we get past where we are now.

All this is a fancy, backstory-laden way of saying, “Hey, I made this here drawing, lookit.”

I’ve been drawing this nose for a while, but it hasn’t found a home yet.

I’m lucky enough to be friends with Bonnie Tarses, an artist, weaving master, dancer, and several other titles of her own. She wanted to make a promotional video featuring her Almost Ikat drafting technique. I was called in to document it and to edit the result. This is it:

You can see it with some more context at her blog.

What I learned: this is super, super fun. I saw my share of film editing in college (to the point that I’m pretty sure I could splice actual film together with tape, if necessary), but I’d never done anything quite like it myself. Now I want to do more. How to Spend a Day Without Work and Have an Awesome Time. How to Serenade Your Cat Via Improv. How to Ignore a Pile of Stuff in the Living Room for Months on End – For Fun and Profit! The possibilities are endless!

This was my contribution.

I am very close to finishing Furlough two. I’ve scanned and polished each page; what remains is to letter (gah) with a stylus (GAH) and then to do the things I consider simpler, like drawing and painting covers, laying out the whole thing, and drawing page 36. I think it’s going to be a tradition with me that, if i can help it, the last page of a given book will be a bullshit strip, which I will do only once almost everything else is done. When you’re doing something very long that requires a great deal of stamina, you can lose sight of the satisfaction of finishing something quickly. Writing and penciling and inking one page in one long session can set that to rights.

Now, to pictures.

Here’s where I’ll be this Saturday, from 11:30 to 4:30:

I’ll be at table one, which is in the back corner, against a wall. I will have comics and zines and OH MY GOD FURLOUGH TWO, which I will still be reeling from.

And here’s a fun game for you:

This is where I am now. I know what they’re saying here; what do you think they’re saying?

One last update: I’m currently at spam number 496, so some delightfully stupid illustrations will likely start appearing here shortly. Iron Cartoonist Challenge: make a list of prescription drugs appear funny when sketched.