Molly 24

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 30th, 2010. (Hey its my birthday! I'm 21 today)

Here it is! The last comic of Molly. Unfortunately, I've decided not to continue this next semester. It was a fun foray into the world of comic strip artistry, but ultimately I just don't have the time. These take about 4 hours a piece, so that's 8 hours a week. My class work (particularly my design work) takes up most of my time so I just ran ragged trying to get these done sometimes.

I learned a lot doing these. Working on a deadline Dealing with editors (though I really only corresponded through email). Compromising for the sake of time (not always for the better tho). Rapid idea generation (again not always for the better but I am getting better). Streamlining my work flow and getting organized.

I'll treasure this experience because it really was a dream come true. The 5 year old in me is jumping with joy. And hey, I even got paid for them, so bonus! I got paid to see my work printed. That's an amazing feeling.

I am still gonna draw comics and post them somewhere, probably Twitter. If you have one, follow me @emily_mclain and you can see them! Also, big news. This summer I'm starting a webcomic a friend. It will be awesome and hilarious. I'll post the link when that gets off the ground.

Thanks so much for reading my comic this semester! I don't know how many people actually read it, but if you're reading this then I guess you did! I hope I made you laugh a little bit.

-Emily (so excited with life right now!)

Molly 23

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 26th, 2010.

This is a reference to Gilmore Girls, if anyone watched that show. Kudos if you caught it.

2nd to last comic this semester! Not sure if I'm going to continue this next semester so this could be the beginning of the end for Molly. Its not that I don't like doing it, I just don't have enough time to devote to it. I probably won't really decide until next semester though.

-Emily (only two weeks left until SUMMER)

Molly 22

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 24th, 2010.

I liked this one. (Though I hate Steve in the second panel. I was tired of static poses so I drew him walking but it ended up looking kinda strange.) Anyway, I enjoyed showing off more of Molly's personality. She's very suggestible.

Only 2 comics left this semester!

-Emily

Molly 21

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 19th, 2010.

I liked this one. Of course Molly would jump all over that. I love the third panel best. It's how I feel when I realize I get to do something awesome.

Only 3 comics left this semester!

-Emily

Molly 20

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 16th, 2010.

So last week there was a mixup and the O'Colly forgot about my comic again. The designers aren't used to having it so they forget occasionally. Oh well. I was going to be too busy to do a comic for Monday, so I let the editor know when I sent Friday's comic. Well when I didn't see the comic in Friday's paper, I assumed he was holding it till Monday. What resulted was no comic being printed Friday or Monday! lol So finally this comic, which should've been printed a week ago is only now bring printed. Like I said, oh well. It happens. It worked out anyway, since I was busy all week.

Additionally, I've been super sick for a week straight now. I'm only now starting to feel better. So pray I get well soon!

Oh ya. I know this comic makes no sense. I had had little sleep when I drew this out. That's the life, man. Sometime you get random ideas that somehow make it to print.

-Emily (sniffle sniffle cough cough)

Molly 19

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 5th, 2010.

Actually did something somewhat holiday related! I hope everyone had a great Easter and didn't get sick on Easter candy since that's not really what Easter is all about. Also peeps are gross so I hope nobody ate too many of those.

Oh also, I totally whipped this out in like 3 hours. I am super proud of myself!

-Emily (wanting a chocolate bunny right now)

Molly 18

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published April 2nd, 2010.

Molly is quite vocal about her emotions so of course stress would make her hysterical. I think next week she'll be getting a study partner, and I will subsequently be introducing a semi-regular character. Stay tuned.

-Emily

Molly 17

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 26th, 2010.

This is me all the time. All. The. Time.

-Emily (daydreaming of sleep)

Molly 16

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 26th, 2010.

I used my new refillable-ink pens on this comic! I was previously using pigment liners and they worked OK, but the refillable ones are supposed to be the best. So thank you Mom for getting them for me! I definitely need to practice with them though, it wasn't a smooth first outing. A big problem is the paper I'm using (plain printer paper) which worked OK with the pigment liners, which are quick drying, but doesn't work so well with the ink pens. I'm casting about for a new (affordable) paper to use in future.

I'm thinking I should have had an establishing shot as the first panel. Oh well, i suppose it works OK without. Sometimes I forget the basic rules of composing comics. Also I tried something a bit new with this, using a light gray in the second panel (its actually black w/the opacity turned down). I'm writing this entry before this comic is printed in the newspaper so I don't know how it will look printed. Stay tuned. (ETA: Looked fine lol)

In other news, I finally got smart and made a comic template (lines, title, and sig) so I can just transfer the inked sketches into. Maybe it will speed things up a bit? We'll see.

-Emily (getting busy busy busy again)

Molly 15

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 22nd, 2010.

Well Spring Break is over, so that means returning to class, homework, and comics.

Since I know you all care about my comic making process and stuff I'll tell you about this one. So my friends went to St Louis Wednesday-Saturday for a little vacation and Tuesday night I realized that I needed to have this comic finished because I wouldn't have time when i got back to get it done before the deadline. (For those of you who don't know, for anything to get printed in the newspaper, it has to be submitted the day before (obviously) so my deadline days are Sunday and Thursday by about midday. I like to have them done the night before that so I don't have to worry about remembering to email the comic on time). So there I am Tuesday night, no comic ready at all, so I put aside everything else, pull out a sheet of paper and get to drawing.

I still have not got my comic process streamlined enough to not have any snags. Somehow when I got the file into Photoshop and arranged it in the correct 4 panel format, it was like twice as big as it was supposed to be. Normally, I clean up the drawing in Photoshop, then add the lines and dialog onto a separate layer. Both layers get separately exported as gifs into Illustrator. Since the drawing was twice as big as normal, the lines and text (which are a constant size/width) all seemed twice as small. So I just exported the drawing, made it all nice in Illustrator and brought that file back into Photoshop as a pdf. Illustrator's LiveTrace function seemed to work better the larger the lines are, because the bigger the image, the better it looks when its shrunk. I'm finally figuring out that leaving it big, LiveTracing it, then shrinking it is the way to go.

So ANYway... very long story short. My comic process is by no means a smooth-sailing ship. I have basic steps that I try to follow but sometimes I gotta be flexible and just roll with whatever happens or else I'd never get anything done.

BTW, this comic from initial concept to final comic took 4 1/2 hours. It's the first one I did from start to finish in one sitting so that's my first true estimate of work time for these. Penciling it and cleaning up the LiveTrace are what take the longest. Only practice and repetition will cut the work time down.

Emily (apologetic about the long post)

Bonus Comic

Here's a bonus comic for all you faithful readers. Didn't I promise some bonus stuff?? And didn't I also promise that it wouldn't be all that awesome?? Well anyway, here ya go, an unprinted Molly comic.

This is actually the second comic I did of Molly but it wasn't printed because it's basically identical to the first strip (here). It didn't get beyond the initial inking stage so this is the rough un-LiveTraced version. See why I LiveTrace these?

Anyway, next week the O'Colly resumes printing so Monday there will be a brand new comic! I think I'm falling into a nice groove with these now so go out and pick up a newspaper (if you're at OSU) or return here Monday evening!

-Emily (having a great Spring Break)

A Day in the Life

In the absence of a Molly comic, I've decided to post some different comics this week, just other comics that I've done in my free time.

A while back I did some hourly comics, which is basically where I do a quick comic every hour of something that happened to me for an entire day. I'm posting it here as a sort of "About the Artist" thing because this is pretty accurate depiction of my day in that I spend 90% on the computer. Also since Molly's character design is pretty much how I draw myself, it's sort of relevant to Molly right?

Here is the link: http://twitpic.com/18sus6

Emily (kickin' back and lovin it)

Molly 14

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 12th, 2010.

I really liked this comic and its perhaps because I actually had a decent amount of time to work on it. Came out nice I thought. And for once, LiveTrace didn't totally destroy it. I think it is how I scan it and transfer the images in Photoshop that makes the difference.

Anywho, again this is pretty much true to life. I love Boston (the city) but don't really care for baseball yet I have a Boston Red Sox hat. I've decided that the hat represents Boston itself (B for Boston!) and not just the baseball team so its OK for me to wear it. ...Yes I'm a total poser.

Also noticed that I totally forgot my signature on this. Somewhere between Photoshop and Illustrator it got lost I guess. Kinda really annoys me, but I noticed it too late to fix it for the newspaper print.

Next week is Spring Break, so no comic. Maybe I will post some extras? I dunno I will see.

Emily (ready for a BREAK for SPRING)

Molly 13

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 8th, 2010.

I've been getting really bad about posting these on time. Sorry!

Anyway, I really hated the execution of this comic. Liked the idea (Fun fact, this actually happened to me, my friend Michael frequently dresses like this and so every time I see someone dressed like that on campus, I immediately assume its him) but it just did not turn out as I wanted. I'm still fighting Illustrator to get these to look right the first time and not after hours of fixing. Its getting so that it actually takes longer to fix it than to actually draw it.

-Emily (done with projects and finally getting some relaxing time)

Molly 12

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 5th, 2010.

This was a filler comic I did a couple weeks ago, back when I was drawing them actual size. It really showed when I was cleaning it up in Photoshop and Illustrator, the lines were messy and blurry with no reduction to cover up the little errors. I also did this really late at night and didn't really care to make the lines perfect. Hopefully I'll be able to delegate more time for future comics.

Oh and this totally happens to me all the time. I get way too into books some times and I love it.

-Emily (wanting to read a good book)

Molly 11

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published March 1st, 2010.

This was supposed to be published Feb 26 but the editor forgot to include it. Oh well, it happens, I don't blame him. It works out for me because it's one less thing I have to do this week. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the O'Colly has set me up to get paid for two comics a week, regardless if it's published or not. So it's all good.

For some reason I really liked the first and last panel of this comic. The two in the middle are so-so. I'm still wrestling with LiveTrace, trying to have it NOT completely F up my drawing. I kind of wish now that I hadn't LiveTraced the first one, so I wasn't stuck with it now.

This is the last one of the Tucker arc (for now). I've got some fillers coming up just to tide me over for a couple weeks till I can work up a new arc.

Emily (loving comics and design right now)

Molly 10

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published February 22th, 2010.

I had such a time doing the hands on this one. Try not to focus too much on any one, cuz they start to look a bit funky. Some days I can draw awesome hands, other days they look like sausages. Oh well, such is the life.

My favorite part of this comic is Tucker's head turning back and forth in the panels. It amuses me so. I'm pretty sure I'm keeping Tucker. I get tired of just drawing people all the time, tho it does present a challenge of drawing the people small enough so Tucker is visible. (I had to make him a Schnauzer, couldn't of made him a Great Dane...). I'll just have to have more dynamic comic panels, which will improve the comic overall, so hooray for forced improvement!

Emily (teetering on the edge of sick-ville, yuck)

Molly 09

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published February 19th, 2010.

I barely got this comic in on time. This week has been so crazy. It desperately needs to be redrawn especially that messed up last panel but there was just no time. Oh well, sometimes gotta give and turns out it was this comic.

Anywho. Continuing the saga of dog walking at the Humane Society. Once again, I urge everyone to go, they always need volunteers to walk dogs for them. Plus its fun!

I'm seriously considering adding Tucker to the cast. I'm just letting the strips play out from here one out, with no real guidelines so we'll see what happens.

-Emily (having an epicly bad week so far)

Molly 08

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published February 15th, 2010.

So this was supposed to be published on the 12th, but the O'Colly designers forgot about it :( so it got pushed till Monday. I was gonna have two today to make up for it but I was lazy over the weekend and didn't get the next one finished ha. Oh well, just one more day this arc will last.

I like Tucker, he's hella fun to draw. I'm considering making him a more permanent character...somehow. Maybe Molly will adopt Tucker?! I don't know, lol. Maybe. What do you think? Would you want to see more of Tucker, eh? Comment or something.

-Emily (can't think of anything clever to say right now)

Molly 07

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published February 8th, 2010.

Continuing the walking dogs adventure. Wanna know a secret? That last panel was completely different, I changed it at the last minute. I think it works better this way. Anyway, theres like 3 more of these...I think. They're only at the "thinking about" stage so I don't really know.

Oh yeah, and the O'Colly put a teaser for my comic on the front page! Not really that exciting for anyone but me.

-Emily (about 72 hours behind on sleep for the last week)

Molly 06

©THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Originally published February 5th, 2010.

If you saw this in the newspaper, they printed it HUGE, like the width of the page. I don't know why, maybe because of all the type in the second panel? Or maybe they had the space. I wish they would just have a standard size, so when I clip them out and put them in my portfolio for future generations to behold my awesomeness, all the strips matched in size. It is the designer in me that wants them all straight and equal.

So here starts a mini arc, in which Molly and Steve take a trip to the Humane Society and walk dogs. See I told you it wasn't gonna be anything spectacular. But I love the Humane Society, especially because they are a no-kill facility. Everybody should go and volunteer at least once, you'll feel better about yourself when you do!

Anyway, back to the comic strip itself. I am having serious trouble with Steve's hair, getting it to look consistent and not like an afro. It looks better in pencil, cuz it's scribbly and looks more like hair. Unfortunately, LiveTrace (el douchebago) doesn't like that look and converts it to solid black. So I don't know. Guess I'm stuck with this look now.

-Emily (wishing I had a dog to play with right now)