Love Love Hill

TCAF 2013 Reports Repost

figarizzle — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:24:00 -0400

In case you don’t follow Love Love Hill members separately from this blog, here are the reports from TCAF 2013! Chock-full of comics and

Dirchansky’s report

Kim’s report

And are you guys ready for manlyman commissions at Anime North (table B16-B17) this year?? (You are already deeeaaaddd!!!)

Edit: Life on the Hill 2 Japan is now up on our store website, getchur copy now! It’s a doozy!

Thank you all for coming out to tcaf :) we love you all!!

sumafu — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:03:00 -0400

Love Lens and I Will Follow You Holmes + REINDEER BROS

belugachop drawing LotH in situ

Life on the Hill 2, late night binding party

GORLSSSS!

Busy busy busy!!

Drawing Pinkey at Jack Astor's

HAHA looking thrilled to be tabling

Some TCAF attendees drew SMURFS for me!!

Maurice <3

Thank you all for coming out to tcaf :) we love you all!!

Belugachop, Figarizzle, and Sumafu will be at Toronto Comic Arts...

sumafu — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:12:12 -0400

Life on the Hill 2... COVER PENDING

Love Lens by Cat, sumafu, belugachop, ukiiukii, figarizzle, ZaraLT, Saicoink

I will follow you Holmes by belugachop

Knight Life by 2013, Artemis, Barbara, Dirchansky, Kim, Koyar, Mackie

G by Artemis, Dirchansky, Koyar & Saicoink Kim Hoang, Kris Mukai & Dani Pigeon, Kat Mukai, Hilary Florido & Ada Price

The printed guide will say otherwise, but we are officially at table 274!!

Belugachop, Figarizzle, and Sumafu will be at Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend. We will be located at *~ table 274 ~*, which is situated on the 2nd floor of the library, near the entrance to the exhibitor room. Come say hi and check out our goods :). The printed version of the festival guide may say a different table number, but we are officially at 274!

Stock list for TCAF 2013!

Comics

Life on the Hill 2 (autobio/original)
I will follow you Holmes (BBC Sherlock)
Love Lens (original)
Knight Life (original)
G (original)
Life on the Hill 1 (autobio/original)
Not Stray (original)
Bok Choy Bash & the Sashimi Adventures AGAIN (original)
Bok Choy Bash & The Sashimi Adventures (original)
Vocalatte Tea Time (Vocaloid)
Kitto Cuticle (Arashi)
Ventiquattr’ore su Ventiquattro (Reborn)
Slam Punkz (Slam Dunk)

Zines/artbooks

Non-book goods

Our red and yellow risograph prints (11” x 17”, limited edition of 20 each)
Various silkscreen prints by belugachop

figarizzle: Yaaaay. Kim’s postcard for Love Lens...

sumafu — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:44:00 -0400

figarizzle:

Yaaaay.

Kim’s postcard for Love Lens preorders! We’ll have a few to give away for our debut at TCAF also! This cat butt!!

~Love Lens~ A collection of romantic tales set in that glorious...

sumafu — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:46:09 -0400

Dust jacket cover by Kim Hoang.

Features comics by Cat Clochard, Dirchansky, Koyar, Justin Lanjil, Kim Hoang, and Laura Tryon. Guest illustration by Saicoink!

Full colour dust jackets, illustrated by figarizzle

This anthology's cover and book design were also by figarizzle!

112 pages of B/W glasses awesomeness! This photos features @belugachop

~Love Lens~

A collection of romantic tales set in that glorious time of youth when your heart can shatter as easily as your glasses.

Featuring the original work of seven Canadian artists, themed around our favourite fashion accessory! Follow us to a world fresh with magical girls, first loves, and self-discovery.

The charming volume of light-hearted and humourous stories unwoven in the tradition of Japanese shojo manga is certain to send a thrilling pitter-patter straight to your core.

Book specs:

Size: 5” x 7.75”
Cover: Full colour dust jacket with silk finish, variant (!) b/w cover underneath
Interior: 112 pages, b/w
Binding: perfect

All canadian cast of contributors:

How to get it:

Pre-order online at the Love Love Hill store to have the book shipped to you! Shipping begins May 15th, 2013. Book costs $13 + shipping (if applicable)
Grab a copy IN PERSON at a convention! We are debuting the book at TCAF and will also have copies of it at Anime North and Otakuthon!

maiji: A few methods I use to visualize imposition/page layouts...

sumafu — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:30:50 -0400

maiji:

A few methods I use to visualize imposition/page layouts when I plan my books and comics. (Note this is not about actually imposing pages for print; it’s more to help you plan your content.) I usually employ all three depending on where I’m at or what information I need to figure out.

left and right folio: left-hand page or right hand page

OFC, IFC, IBC, OBC: outside front cover, inside front cover, inside back cover, outside back cover.

Imposition is essentially the art of page layout. It’s about figuring out how pages of a book will be positioned on a sheet to get them to where they need to be when the entire book is finally printed and assembled. It can help you figure out where spreads are, where sections start, etc.

This can be very helpful for both plotting/pacing your work and print production. It allows you to see, for example, whether something will start on left hand or right hand page, or where a spread will fall – whether the spread is actually running across one sheet of paper, or if it’s being split up across two and there’s a chance for some misalignment. You can also have a sense of how long or short of a book you want (depending on your time/patience/budget etc.), and fill pages accordingly.

Read the full article on my website.

Maiji is killing it with her walkthrough for book imposition/page layouts.

Eiji Otsuka Workshop Recap: Cinematography in Manga (2)

figarizzle — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:20:00 -0400

figarizzle:

This is part two of three, recapping the workshop with Eiji Otsuka, manga writer and Kobe Design University professor. Held at Otaku Lounge, Otsuka-sensei and his student Chiharu Nakashima (a professional mangaka in her own right) gave us a two-day crash course on manga storytelling.

Part One can be found here.

Where we left off: Otsuka-sensei had gone through a super-condensed lesson about cinematography devices in manga-storytelling. He then assigned us some homework…

DAY TWO: Homework Assignment Correction, Common Mistakes in Manga Layouting

Read More

Why do I talk so much!!

Eiji Otsuka Workshop Recap: Cinematography in Manga (1)

figarizzle — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:23:00 -0400

figarizzle:

Last weekend, I was very lucky to be able to attend and participate in an inspiring two-day workshop led by manga writer and Kobe Design University professor Eiji Otsuka, of MPD Psycho and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery fame. Held at Otaku Lounge, Otsuka-sensei and his student Chiharu Nakashima (a professional mangaka in her own right) gave us a crash course on manga storytelling that entirely blew my mind.

I really felt like this is the type of thing Love Love Hill tends to be really interested in, so I wanted to write a bit of a recap of my experience and share some of the lesson here :D

I’ve broken it down into the two days and then one more entry about my own thoughts and what I synthesized most out of it. I am probably not going to delve too deeply into individual points in the actual lesson, because the presentation was so dense and to be honest I am not really sure how to do it without mass hand gesturing and visual aids, lol. I can only try my best to explain it in words here, I’m sorry. Maybe for another time.

DAY ONE: An Introduction to the Usage of Cinematographic Language in the Art of Manga

Read More

figarizzle: Back in January, I was asked by En Masse to take...

figarizzle — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:06:34 -0400

figarizzle:

Back in January, I was asked by En Masse to take part in a little side-gig for the Quebec clothing company Simons, drawing a mural for their DJAB Men’s line. My own photos off my phone of the progress was pretty terrible, but you can see me in action in the video above ~~ and the backdrop in use at Simon’s website here!

Designing the "TamaGotCheese" comic anthology

sumafu — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:30:00 -0400

The TamaGotCheese anthology was an original comic anthology, (mainly) about owners and their beloved Tamagotchi! The design this time was 100000% inspired by the original North American packaging/brand. I wanted to recreate that scratchy look that emulated the feel of wax crayons. Everything had to look a bit ghetto/scraggly/unkept.

I wrote the title and drew some characters with brush and watercolour. I’m using some kind of complete-inappropriate-for-wet-media-bond-paper here. I made sure to feature at least 1 tama from every contributor’s story :).

Here’s what it looks like when you scan it in at 600dpi bitmap (b/w)

The main changes were the composition of characters and I tightened up the space between the letters in the title. I played around with a few cover concepts

I asked the contributors for their thoughts :)

Here is the cover without characters

The little emotes on the spine reflect the kind of emotes that Tamagotchi have on screen when they’re trying to communicate with you!

Here’s the final cover. I coloured it very loosely, and didn’t do that much cleaning outside of the lines to keep the kiddy look.

For font, I went for a very “digital” pixellated looking one. I was looking for something more 8-bit. It is called PF Tempesta Seven.

The table of contents was quite straight forward. Little rectangles for windows, like the screen of a a tamagotchi (but the porportion and orientation are obviously wrong, haha).

^these are like mary sue tamagotchi characters. Ogachipatchi and Smurtchi, eating cheese… because Tama Got Cheese.

I asked all the contributors to tamagotchi-ize their handles for this book.

I also asked if each contributor could draw a tamagotchi version of themselves. Here is the result… along with survey of fav and hated foods. This was inspired by real tamagotchi growth/evolution charts!

I arbitrarily assigned the “good-bad” care based on how scraggly/dirty the tama looked, haha. The growth chart is also relatively accurate to our relative ages.

Then I drew everyone’s tama-self mixed in with real tama.

scanned and reordered version

How it was put into the credits page layout

The book is out of print, but some contributors have put their pages online to be read!

e1n/e1n - Apples & Strawberries

belugachop/Koyar - Tamadachi

sumafu/Dirchansky - Peculiar Connections

Last but not least, here is the THANK YOU Kuchipatchi I drew for the kind hearts who pre-ordered! “You’re # 1” is real text from TamaTown’s ecards.

I think the cover design was especially successful in bringing back the nostalgia for a lot of people who passed by. When we were at conventions, people would point at our table and go “Ohhh Tamagotchi!! I remember those!”, which was interesting for us to see :). Some people even started discussing tama or sharing their tama stories! Signing this book for readers was also nice because we all got into drawing a signature tamas (and it’s easier to draw tama vs. humans).

Designing the "Knight Life" comic anthology

sumafu — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:58:00 -0400

When it comes to putting together an anthology… I know that the other artists are relying on me to present their work in a way that is appropriate. I like to think about the visual cohesiveness and presentation of a book.

When I began designing Knight Life, I knew that I wanted something different from our usual book designs. Prior to this, our books were more comedic, tongue-in-cheek, and playful. This time we were dealing with knights. Although fictional, these knights were going to war, going on adventures, and facing life/death. The topic itself was a little heavier and more serious than what we put together before.

I was able to take direct inspiration from early European books. Let’s go back to that hand drawn feel, reminiscent of the old woodcuts and copper engravings with crosshatching. Extravagant book plates. Let’s try to inject knight life (literally) in as much of the design as possible. I looked at a handful of Penguin books for inspiration (especially David Pearson’s work) because they presented an interesting blend of new and contemporary elements. I kept these in mind, but I also had to work within the limits of my drawing skills (the bottleneck) and time (since I was also drawing a story)

First up was font. I closed my eyes and thought about what kind of font I’d see in knight publications. Then I went through my library and grabbed a bunch; Naturally I went for a selection of serif

When I can’t decide, I turn to the anthology’s contributors for their feedback and advice :). I think we all ended up voting on Bell MT? Some of these felt too modern, or too “kitschy”, so it was about finding a balance that had a vintage, timeless elegance to compliment our book.

Bannisters for the table of contents, held up by the spearnibs. I thought of grand halls with tons of banners hung on the wall. Or bannisters held up by knights at a joust?!

The “court fare” portion is basically a script for the court herald (sorry I don’t know the term LOL). Imagine a trumpet sound before it’s read. It’s an announcement for STORY TIME!!

I like to make visual ToCs :). I asked the contributors what they wanted to be called. Interestingly there’s a mix of Lady, Sir, and Ser! Bonus is that I got 2013’s page to start on 20, and 52w’s to start on page 52 :).

I created this painful chain mail repeatable pattern for the cover. I think this is the only place it was used (for the hours I spent getting the pattern to align perfectly). My mind is not good at sorting out how to splice patterns properly for good tiling.

“Spears” but they were really just ink nibs :). I inked my comic with nibs this time!

random little shield and sword icon?!

This decorative/ornamental framing piece… the rationale was to include organic elements as homage to things that you might find ON THE HILL (in nature), which includes roses, leaves, and grapes. I remember getting 1000% sucked into reading about heraldry in the height of my knight obsession, but we all know that Love Love Hill is pretty non-symbolic when it comes to what we like (ahah). I will also admit that I’m better at drawing roses by memory vs most other flowers.

So there’s all this stuff. Time to put it together… which does take a while. The other ornamental frame is a modified version of the LLH crest (which has a ghetto secret).

I often forget that people aren’t going to see the full spread when a comic is sitting on the table; they’re more likely to just see the front cover.

I flipped the swords for the inside page (right after you open the cover), though I don’t have much rationale for that

Aside from what was going to be printed, I thought about the physicality of it. I knew that there would be no gloss coating, no finish, no bright bleached paper. Imperfections and off sets were welcome. Going for the old woodcut look (or just the usual LLH handmade feel)!

I have been drooling over beautiful risograph publications, and when I found out that JP King @ PaperPusher offered Risograph printing in Toronto, I knew I had to jump on it. MMm yess… coloured inks that are absorbed into the page!! None of this toner stuff for this book!

I remember telling JP that I wanted the book to feel “handsome”. Even though we were communicating by email, I felt confidence in his choices. He came back to me with a few options (since he knew I was on budget) and I let him take care of the rest :)

Here is the cover image separated for black ink

Here is the cover image separated for teal ink

I have to admit that I was (and still am) a risograph newbie, so I did not do anything too daring with overlaps this time! Regardless, I think the book came out looking great (rare pat on my own back), and we could not have done it without JP’s book printing/making chops :)

Ok so I’m not really sure what the purpose of this TL;DR post is, but I am simply inviting you future bookmakers (!) to think about the little details that can really bring a publication together (aside from just the awesome comics and stories)!

Compare the feeling of the digital vs printed images, and how methods and material play a role in the ultimate “feel” of a book.

You can still grab a copy of Knight Life at the Love Love Hill store, or come find us in person at Toronto Comic Arts Festival or Anime North!

belugachop: Books for sales! Help me move, buy my books!If you...

belugachop — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:15:54 -0500

belugachop:

Books for sales! Help me move, buy my books!
If you buy any of these books from the Love Love Hill Store, I will send you a free copy of Vestige along with your order! Offer good until January 22nd or when I run out of books…

From top left to bottom right:

Fashion Battle (illustration zine)
Ventiquatto’re su Ventiquattro (Kattekyo Hitman Reborn fanbook)
Kitto Cuticle (Arashi fanbook)
White Rice Fish (mini illustration zine)
IMPULSE (Keizoku 2: SPEC fanbook)
Knight Life (Knight-themed comics anthology)
G (NEW!)
Not Stray (original comics)

If you wish to purchase multiple items, combined shipping is available. Please email me at waikhan[at]gmail.com

Thanks :D

Hi there, I love your blog a lot! I was wondering if you knew any place that makes custom printed paper bags or even packaging? I can't seem to find a good place for it...

belugachop — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 01:51:06 -0500

Thanks :D

Unfortunately, no, we don’t know any place that makes them, assuming that you want small quantity. Just so you know, we DIY by screenprinting on blank paper bags that you can buy from dollar stores. Alternatively, you can carve your own stamp, (or purchase one) to stamp on bags.

If you are actually printing quantity of 500 or more bags, it’s really not that difficult to find a printer, you just gotta google.

Hope that helps!

-koyar

Love Love Hill in Japan at En Masse / Embassy of Canada in...

sumafu — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:11:00 -0500

En Masse @ Design Festa Gallery (Harajuku); LIVE PAINTING from many collaborators from many different countries!

En Masse @ Design Festa Gallery (Harajuku); figarizzle and belugachop show off their connection skills

En Masse @ Design Festa Gallery (Harajuku); figarizzle in our hotel room cleaning things up

En Masse @ Design Festa Gallery (Harajuku); belugachop forever drawing ichiro and fish :)

En Masse @ Design Festa Gallery (Harajuku); sumafu forever drawing pinkey clones

En Masse @ Design Festa Gallery (Harajuku); figarizzle forever drawing beauty ladies

Books @ Embassy of Canada in Japan (E.H. Norman Library); donated books to their library collection!

Freebies @ Kaigai Manga Festa/Comitia; Canada representation woo woooo

Books @ Kaigai Manga Festa/Comitia; familiar books...

Canada Comic Arts @ Press Pop Gallery/Shibuya Parco; next to the amazing Maurice Vellekoop

Love Love Hill in Japan at En Masse / Embassy of Canada in Japan / Kaigai Manga Festa / Canada Comic Arts

Thank you to everyone who came to see us in Japan, and to TCAF for making this all possible! This was a great way to celebrate our 10th anniversary of drawing comics together :)

We have all returned to our respective spots in Canada!

figarizzle: Love Love Hill flyers for Japan are all ready to...

figarizzle — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:19:02 -0400

figarizzle:

Love Love Hill flyers for Japan are all ready to go~ Our new business cards will be done on Saturday, look forward to it :D

We’re currently getting all our arrangements done, it seems as though this is trip is gonna be a fujoshi tour of cats-and-food basically. My mother has told me to take a lot of pictures and video, lol.

TCAF Presents “Canada Comic Arts” Date: 11.15 – 12.02 Place:...

sumafu — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:46:48 -0400

Kim/figarizzle

Kim/figarizzle CLOSE UP

Wai/belugachop

Wai/belugachop CLOSE UP

Dirchansky/sumafu

Dirchansky/sumafu CLOSE UP

TCAF Presents

“Canada Comic Arts”

Date: 11.15 – 12.02

Place: Shibuya Parco Part One B1F, Inside Parco Book Center at Presspop Gallery.

We are proud to present “Canada Comics Arts” curated by TCAF of Canada.
In trying to give us a chance to glimpse the presently expanding exciting comics and arts scene in Canada, TCAF has selected and brought over original artworks by amazing artists, Maurice Vellekoop and Love Love Hill, and also books by Canadian artists of their choice.
The TCAF crew, artists, and publishers will be in store on November 18th from 19:00 to discuss what’s going on now in the Canadian comics/art/publishing scene. Don’t miss out on this rare chance!

English version / Japanese version

Many many many thanks to TCAF for this amazing opportunity! LLH’s first art exhibit ever, and in Japan…! Can you spot all the Canadian references in our images? We created these illustrations especially for this event :)

Risograph red/yellow ink, 11”x17” printed in Toronto by the very talented JP King / Paperpusher!

Have you guys tried using Createspace to print your comics?

belugachop — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:55:00 -0400

No, we haven’t. Has anyone of our followers tried?

We try to encourage people to take matter into their own hands and learn how to put together their own book so they don’t have to rely on Print On Demand companies like the one you mentioned.

-koyar

Guide to risograph printing

sumafu — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 14:56:33 -0400

Guide to risograph printing:

EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT RISOGRAPHY, & MORE!

Extremely informative guide by paper pusher (also on tumblr), who printed Knight Life for us in Toronto :)

I have read your walkthrough at how to make comics, the extension one. I want to ask you which quality of images is better, bitmap or grayscale (I can't make any difference)? Usually, some websites can't show the preview of psd files unless you submit their jpg previews. So, should I save the bitmap psd into bmp or jpg?

figarizzle — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 01:33:00 -0400

Kim: Hi there, I’m not really sure I understand your question, but I will try to reply to it anyways.

First off, I’m going to assume you’re referring to print quality, because that’s usually what we write about. Between what’s better to use, B/W bitmap or greyscale, it all depends on the artwork you’re trying to scan in. The overall sharpness of your image is actually more determined by the DPI (dots-per-inch, or sometimes it’s referred to as PPI points-per-inch), and so the higher the DPI you have, the more “quality” there is because there is more data ‘per-inch’. So before you even start, please make sure the DPI setting on your scanner is set anywhere from 300 to 1200 DPI (here at Love Love Hill we usually use 600DPI). The rule of thumb is that higher is better, so just use what your computer can handle.

From there you can choose between scanning in B/W Bitmap, or greyscale. If your artwork has a lot of grey in it, like ink washes or pencil shading, use greyscale to preserve the toning. If you have a high enough DPI you can reprint it as is and the image quality should be good. If your artwork is strictly just black on white, and you won’t be needing grey tones, then set it to scan at B/W Bitmap. Using this setting results in both a smaller file size taking up less room on your computer, as well as a crisper black and white line, because that’s exactly what it is — only black and white. No subtle greys fuzzing up the edges of your linework when you reprint it.

The difference between B/W Bitmap and Greyscale printed files can be very subtle, but still detectable to a trained eye. If you’re using higher and higher DPI counts, the visible difference between the two prints decreases, but then on your computer, the greyscale file will be huge and harder to edit, and the B/W bitmap file will seem much smaller.

Now onto the second part of your question— I’m not really sure what you meant by a “preview of a psd file” but I guess what you mean is that you can’t view PSDs on websites in your browser? Our tutorials are really meant more for print, so it doesn’t exactly apply to web/browser use. If you are trying to scan your artwork for web use, you’ll have to save it as a JPG or something else that most browsers can view, like a GIF or a PNG. In this case, for just web use, DPI and Bitmap are not really applicable. You only need to worry about the pixel size of your image. If you are resizing from a larger scan, it’s actually best to do it in Greyscale or RGB colour, because B/W Bitmap looks kind of gross and pixelly at smaller pixel sizes.

I hope that makes sense and answers what you were asking. If it’s still not right please feel free to send your question again! Also, if you guys want us to further explain things like different types of files (JPG/GIF/PNG/BMP), or scanning techniques, or optimizing files for web browsers, please let us know and in a comment or in our Askbox and we’ll try to make some new tutorials! :D

Hey there! I remember seeing you guys saying a while ack that you wouldn't attend animethon because of the sucky ticket system in the artist alley but i just gOT BACK FROM ANIMETHON AND THEY DON'T DO THE TICKET THING ANYMORE!!! * u *

belugachop — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 01:05:56 -0400

Koyar: Yes, I know they don’t have the ticket system in place anymore. The main reason we do not attend is because none of us actually live in Edmonton. I am the closest, in Vancouver, Kim is in Montreal, Dirchansky is in Toronto. It is costly to fly all of us in…