Herbert

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Herbert is an old, well-loved, dog. One day his family returns home and finds that he has passed away while waiting for them. They reminisce about his life to deal with their grief.

Writer: Abram Olson
Artist: Angela Boyle
Page layout: Abram Olson
Printer: Egress Studio Press
Publication Date: July 2011
Format: Black and White, 11 pages, 8.5 inches tall x 5.5 inches wide, hand-sewn binding

Angela drew this comic over the course of a month. She used sumi ink with nib dip pens.

Corgis

The most important character in this story is, as you can guess by the title, Herbert the corgi. Abe and Angela have corgis of their own, but both were still fairly young at the time Herbert was drawn and Herbert is very old.

Corgis have fairly strange anatomy with this tiny little legs,
so first up was practing their body shape.

Then practicing an older corgi. This is from a photo.

This is Angela's favorite corgi drawing.

Herbert

Herbert is a cross of Ernie, a tubby fellow at the time,
and Nisa, a tri-color.

Different ink styles of the practice pencil

Pencil and ink of Herbert

Rose

The next most important character in the story is Rose. She and Herbert are pretty good buds. Those bangs are totally based on the ones Angela had in grade school. Huge, thick, cut straight across.

Pencils of Rose

2 ink styles of Rose - Brush and nib (Abe picked nib)

A happy Rose Angela drew to practice t-shirts.

Slightly sadder Rose

Sassy Rose, though I didn't finish her hair

Father

Pencils of the dad, who is a house painter
(Abe was a house painter for many years)

Two rejected inks of the dad. Brush and perhaps a nib.
It was a while ago now so Angela doesn't remember.

Chosen inking style, but Abe didn't like the face, so Angela drew more.

There is a check mark next to the selected face/hairline

Angela didn't know what painter pants look like,
so she had to draw up a little map of the painter pants makeup.

Mother

For some reason, Angela was so confident with the mother design, she didn't ink any. The hair, by the way, is a bit based on Angela's mothers hair.

Full body sketch in her work outfit.

Quick head sketch

Sad mother sketch

Kitchen

The story takes place a lot in the kitchen so Angela drew up this more technical drawing to map it out for reference later.

Herbert by Abe Olson and Angela Boyle ©2011