Blue Milk Special

New to Blue Milk Special? Start reading from the beginning!

BMS is sooooo not for kids and yet the art style often attracts that very age group. The fact that Leia has her cigarettes back in today’s strip reminded me of something that happened to Leanne and myself while at New York Comic Con. A kid came up to the table and looked at some of the BMS artwork then looked up at me and pointed at a picture of Leia and asked “Why is Leia smoking?” I immediately felt awkward. The six or so year old asked me with that mixture of innocence and morality that young children are able to wield devastatingly, leaving adults speechless and desperate for answers. I can’t even remember what I said in response. I think I must have been so stunned and lost for words that I just blanked and he walked off.

In retrospect I realize now that I should have told the kid that Leia’s actress Carrie Fisher used to smoke, drink and do illegal narcotics. Is BMS corrupting the innocent? Next time you see a kid looking at our webcomic, do us a favor and cover their eyes. ;=

A little about the illustrator…

Anyway, there’s a mission for today’s blog. A while back (before this website was hacked in January 2010 and had to be rebuilt) we used to have banner links in the right sidebar. The first and foremost of these was to Leanne’s professional website. As you may, or may not know, Blue Milk Special is a husband and wife collaborative effort. I thought it was high time that I gave Leanne’s work a plug. Without Leanne’s unique cartoon style and her natural affinity for visual humor, BMS wouldn’t exist at all.

For the first time we’re going to give readers a real behind the scenes look at the making of Blue Milk Special. While I write the strips and dabble in some of the art, Leanne handles the bulk of the original art you often see appearing in the strips.

Leanne is the primary illustrator for the BMS webcomic. However, being a collaboration both Leanne and I divide some of the art chores and she also contributes ideas for some of the strips. The process is multifaceted. Leanne does a rough sketch in blue pencil of the characters required for an upcoming strip. She then uses a light box to ink the work and give me line art to scan and color. While we frequently use stock poses that we prepared well in advance, our strips often require something a bit special and so Leanne is frequently contributing new pieces as the storyline progresses.

Unfortunately, sometimes Leanne is wrapped up with other commitments and so the responsibility for the art falls on me. When I create characters myself, like Thalassa Tarkin, many of the Cantina aliens as well as modified poses, I do it digitally using Photoshop. I take care of the composition of the strips, the lettering, effects, etc, meaning I take care of the post production that results in the finished strip. You can see a scan of some of Leanne’s raw line work pictured above.

Leanne and I both share a love for animation, comics, children’s books, sci-fi etc etc. Just as it has shaped my creative interests, it has defined Leanne’s illustration style which I would describe as cartoon pop-art. However, what a lot of people probably don’t know is that it’s not the only style she plays with. Some of her more realistic pieces of pop art are up in her gallery, like Harry Potter’s Order of the Phoenix, V for Vendetta and her Hammer Horror film tributes.

Leanne took her artistic bent to a professional level by pursuing work as a freelance artist and has worked on several comic books in the last 5 years. She most recently wrapped up Ardden’s Casper and the Spectrals and is currently editing and illustrating Rob Zombie’s Whatever Happened to Baron Von Shock. If you are interested in seeing Leanne’s broader range of art styles check out her website LeanneHannah.com. Give her a boost on Twitter by following her.