Michael DiStasi

So here is most of what I've done the past few days in illustrator (If it doesn't load right away, the files are pretty big...) It's a comic book type of story I am going to run with, and use to better my abilities in a couple of ways. Here is a "cover" and the first two pages:

So the book is called Mitasi after the main character. He is a friendly little TV/Monitor box with a cast of friends who follow him on adventures. In this particular story Mitasi misses the country (the hills), and invites his friends to a sleep over at a house outside of the city, where the house will undoubtedly have some fun surprises waiting for them. I really like the way this page turned out. Originally I was going to do each panel of each page one color scheme, so I made each layer leading up to the hills and sky a different solid color. I finished the first page in this theme (which I posted days ago), but I thought it would be harder to follow a story this way, so I've since changed it.

I'm happy with the decision I made to keep the colors consistent. It is really fun to do the interiors and helps me hone in on color schemes I like. Another thing I played with a lot was the text. I only have so many fonts on my computer that I like so I've always had a hard time with this. I also haven't laid out text much so I have some learning to do to make it look as if it's in place.
Also, even though I can write well, I've had a hard time in the past writing for stories I've illustrated. I figure this will help me get more comfortable with writing stories and conversation between characters. So it may be rough as I start out, but I think I'm already getting better at it. I have to keep telling myself to keep things simple!

In the previous page I introduced all of the characters I have so far. Mitasi is smiley T.V. with the M on his head, Bidi is the second character seen, with the squiggled line coming from the top of his head. I think he is going to be Mitasi's #2.
The tube is Poli, who I'm planning on being the cute/daft one, and the big rectangle with the T on is head is Werner. Haven't thought about this character much, but I'm sure in the next few days I'll have an idea.

So I'm gonna make another blog just for all this business so I can keep this one as a variety/trying new things type of portfolio like it has been, but I need to play more with different website/blog features so I figured this would be a good personal project for that. If anyone I know reads all this WOW! Look at you!