Dani's Teacher, Rizal

Introducing Dani's teacher, mentor and master in smithing. His name is Rizal and Dani refers to him as "Cegu Rizal" (Teacher Rizal). He not only helps in Dani in becoming a great "Pandai Besi" (literally "expert in steel" meaning blacksmiths) but also grants him a powerful hilt that can craft weapons without using a forge.

Plus, here's a comic!

the comic was actually done just for the purpose of figuring out how to work with it as well as finding any errors. So the comic might be a bit bumpy because there was a problem midway but I managed to get through it and finish anyhow.

Even so, this comic was done exclusively in malay as it was demanded that this comic to be done in malay first, not english. So for the time being, I'm afraid there won't be an english version. I apologize those who are non-malay readers, I hope you can at least enjoy it still.

Dani preview

So for my next work, I'll probably be going to focus on Dani's story first instead of Suvarnabumi for the time being. Reason being that an opportunity has risen that I could be able to use Dani's story well and I want to try a new approach that is needed for the work.

Briefly said, there's a local company currently launching a platform for comics on mobile phones who are asking for submissions and I am willing to try. It is still very new but I was intrigued with the idea, the platform and what are the possibilities with it... So, I wanted to try it out with Dani.

As for making comics on mobile apps, the challenge was to draw panel by panel comic in one long scroll... The easiest and effective example would be meme or gag comics. With only 320 x 480 in size limit, minimum of at least 6 pages to 20 panels limit per episode, there's only so much that can be put in one episode.

That is what I want to try and with what I'm showing on the picture preview above, would be my desired approach.

At first it felt like a joke but after a long thought... why not? I will experiment more with this new approach and see how it will come out.

Although, as expected, this kind of repetitive use of frame is of course, easy to make IF I have already pre-made the characters, expressions, gestures, etc. As of right now, I've only completed Dani's and I still have to complete the other two members of the group, their enemy and other side characters. Completing Dani's library of expressions and gestures alone took a long time. Not to mention, some work on backgrounds which I am sorely weak at.

Still, I hope I don't disappoint those who might be expecting Suvarnabumi works as I will continue to focus on this on for the moment.

Even still, thank you for reading and following my progress.

Stay tuned!

Dani - Trio!

But first of all, another character to add to the group, Rafi.

Half-man and Half-beast, Rafi is physically the strongest in the group, almost superhuman, and can be insensitive but doesn't mean it. He uses Dani's hammer which was a gift of friendship between them to help forge Dani's weapons. He is also capable of beating monsters with the hammer should Dani and Syazwin were unable to handle them.

Here are all of them three in one picture. I wanted to figure out if the colour AS a group worked. I think I can do better but I haven't figured it out yet so I'm simply making it as I go. So for now, this'll do. Their enemy for the first work would simply be a reuse from an older work that I think would fit very nicely with the fantasy setting.

Dani - Syazwin

I actually didn't want to upload this because I thought it would've been too early since no body of work existed yet to share. Then again, it's what I only have so I thought might as well to keep this active.

This is another character for Dani's group and story.

Her name is Syazwin and she is basically a novice mage. She functions as moral support as well as magic support that includes all elements for offensive, defensive and giving buffs to Dani in combat that affects or changes Dani or his weapon's physical effects. Even so, she tends to screw up and gives the wrong magic out but still gets it done.

Suvarnabumi, A minor Syafiq profile

Good day, nothing much to share but a bit of a Syafiq profile thing. This work is actually simply a redone of an older sketch for the purpose of better presentation as well as an entry for a collaboration of sketches book for a local comic group project.

Progress for the next story is moving but slowly. Plus, I've started to work on two stories at once thus making it slower and I'm still deciding which one to work on first. The other new one isn't serious though. Just something I want to do as a side project for another small but promising publisher. Still, I will tell about it more at a much later time.

Suvarnabumi - "Split Blades"

Suvarnabumi - "Split Blades"

Started actually as a sketch just to play with uniforms and whatnot but then, might as well be a full study for my next story.

also applicable for a sketch entry for a local collaboration.

inspired by them osprey publishing uniform examples works or one of those beautifully drawn examples of war uniforms books and used as references.

Holiday break works.

Late merry eid adha wish, to all the muslim viewers out there!

Inktober is fun but i'm incapable with inks, so ive decided to keep the ball rolling by drawing these. these are done during the raya break and I have to admit these were fun. I'm starting to think I ought to save this guy for an adventure story in the future.

Little Dani and the 1000 islands.

Actually no, this isn't a new story. Just had a lot of fun, ideas overflowing and just something to let off steam after working on Suvarnabumi stuff. ;)

For the past few weeks, I was rather in a slump and couldn't draw much. During that time, I played a lot of The Legends of Zelda : Wind Waker and I was very much enjoying it.

And through playing it, I noticed a lot of Link's enemies like the big bird and guards have certain similarities with certain indonesian or balinese characters. In a way, it just seems familiar... probably the eyes, colours, pattern, bodypaint etc... which I really liked it but I wasn't sure if it was from that but it doesn't matter. I really enjoyed it still.

So I thought, I want to play/draw a bit because of those monsters and just play with costumes... and that finally got me drawing freely again. Even though I'm not actually indonesian myself, I have to say drawing this felt very much enjoyable. I might going to try play with this a little more because it has been so long since I actually enjoyed drawing something not related to serious work or competitions or whatnot... probably gonna try adding backgrounds etc if it's fitting.