Economic Sandcastles

Economic Sandcastles, originally uploaded by timlai.

Okay, I know I said I wouldn't show you any more comics before I launched the official site but I am. However I'm not really sure if I should use this one or not. I created it as the first strip I would post to try to introduce the strip and explain why Andy decides to set up a lemonade stand. I'm not sure if it makes a very good introductory strip anymore though. What do you think? What is the best way to start off a webcomic? Is it better to just launch right into it with a bunch of one-off gags and slowly progress into storylines or is it better to start with storylines from the beginning?

Sample Strips!

I've been debating whether or not to post some sample strips. I still don't have a whole lot of strips that are completely done. I've basically got a bunch written, some drawn, and these ones inked and coloured. I realize that these aren't comedic gold or anything... That's partly why I'm posting them. Why would I give away my best material before I even get my site up? I found these funny when I wrote them but I'm not sure if I still do. I do have comics planned that I know are funny. If anyone does find these funny (or doesn't) then I'd like to know.

I might not even use these strips. I drew them cause right now I'm trying to just get some experience doing finished strips and these were some of my simpler ones. I'm still trying to decide on some artistic details (you may notice that the way I colour the windows changes from strip to strip) so I would appreciate any feedback on the overall look of the strips.

-Tim

The Concept of Lemon Inc. and a Full Colour Lemon Inc. Illustration

I have neglected to explain what this comic strip is actually about besides the brief description on the sidebar. I wanted to wait until we had the website ready to explain the concept in full detail but since I've got this blog going I think I should probably elaborate a little since these posts probably don't make a lot of sense to you. So, here it is: Lemon Inc. is (or will be) a comic about childhood innocence colliding with corporate coruption. Andy, a deadly serious seven-year-old opens up a Lemonade stand with his naive friend and business partner, Jeff, and runs it as if it was an office, thus creating the company, Lemon Inc. He hires other kids as employees including Tommy, a cynical kid who doesn't understand why he is working at the age of seven, Craig, who has severe anger management problems, and Derek, who thinks he's really smart but is a complete idiot and ends up ruining all the lemonade through botched experiments. Andy also employs his stuffed animals: Elephanté the elephant as a salesman, and Minsky the monkey as his secretary. However Andy didn't expect a bunch of girls to open up a competing lemonade stand: Lemcorp. Lemcorp is run by Rachel, a seven-year-old female rights activist. Her employees include Becky, a bubblely girl that is always irritatingly happy and sweet, Alison, a quirky and obsessive girl, Jane, an incredibly calm girl, and Brenda who is smarter than everyone else.

Below is the colour version of the image I inked in the previous post. It's the first full colour image I have drawn for Lemon Inc. that has all the characters (except Elephanté and Minsky, unfortunately who wouldn't fit) and a background in it. I feel that it captures many of the elements of the comic.

Lemon Inc Cast, originally uploaded by timlai.

I think it looks pretty good. The colouring is pretty clean looking. However I realized that the perspective in the background doesn't work very well. We intend to put this image into a sort of Flash application that would show several images relating to each of our comics. We would also put this text over it: Lemon Inc. Updates on (whenever I decide to update), and then we would add a witty slogan over it. Here's one that I came up with:

When life gives us lemons, we make lemonade.

Like always, you can tell me what you think of the image and the concept by leaving comments or sending me a tweet on Twitter.

-Tim

Sketches

I know that nobody is reading this blog, but hopefully someone will soon! Until then I'm going to write this like I would if someone was reading this! Recently I've been busy coming up with strips ideas and developing the official Lai Guys Comics website. While I was doing that stuff I actually neglected to keep up my routine drawing practices so I've been trying to do more sketches for Lemon Inc. recently to prepare myself for when I start posting comics. I know that some people like to look at artist's sketches and process work (me included) so I figured I'd post a bunch of Lemon Inc Sketches. Here we go...

These are some early sketches of the characters in Lemon Inc.. As you can see Andy is in the middle, to his left is an early sketch of Minsky, and at the top are a couple of early sketches of Elephanté. At the bottom left is what was an early sketch of what Tommy might look like - Obviously he looks much different now - and at the bottom right is jeff. The poses are pretty stiff and there's something very wrong about Jeff's expression.
These are early sketches of Andy and Jeff. I was trying to make Jeff kinda fat but he ended up getting too tall making him look a little too old. Their hands look pretty bad...

These ones are more recent. Some of them are okay. There's some Andy, some Jeff, some Tommy and even a little Minsky. The sketches at the bottom are of a character called Becky that I havn't Mentioned yet. The poses are still kinda stiff but at least Tommy's making a hand gesture. In case anybody is wondering, that Thing that Andy's holding is supposed to be an Elmo mug.

These ones are the most recent. Here you've got some very angry Craig sketches, some very bored Tommy sketches and a couple of Jeffs... The posing is getting better. It's still not great but it's better... I think Craig's enraged pose at the top looks pretty funny. The best part of these is probably the facial expressions. I think their personalities come across really well here.

It's getting pretty late. That's all for now...

-Tim

Note: All art and words are © copyright 2008 Tim Lai

Character Designs

These are the main characters in Lemon Inc. :
From left to right, top to bottom, these characters are: Andy, Jeff, Craig, Tommy, and Derek. All art is © copyright Tim Lai 2008.