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-Max
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Chandra, Page 21: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
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Yeah okay, I know, it's a Heinlein book. But come on, Commander Davis is a fan, so what do you expect? The Commander here is one of my very favorite characters. I feel that I was able to convey a lot about his personality in just the two pages that we've seen him so far. Probably much more than say Danya, Rocky or Tom.
You out there with the sharp eyes will note that the weights are 135 kilograms apiece, which is 297 pounds. BUT, on the moon that would only be 49.3 pounds each. Of course, there's still the mass to deal with...hmmmm. Little details and considerations, all things that need to be taken into account when making graphic novels.
Seriously, if you haven't read 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress' by Robert Heinlein, pick it up now! It's about a civil war between Earth and a Lunar colony, what else do you need to know?
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| Click to Enlarge |
You out there with the sharp eyes will note that the weights are 135 kilograms apiece, which is 297 pounds. BUT, on the moon that would only be 49.3 pounds each. Of course, there's still the mass to deal with...hmmmm. Little details and considerations, all things that need to be taken into account when making graphic novels.
Seriously, if you haven't read 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress' by Robert Heinlein, pick it up now! It's about a civil war between Earth and a Lunar colony, what else do you need to know?
Monday, September 12, 2011
Creator Highlight # 1: What Nonsense by Caitlin Crowley
Welcome friends to a somewhat weekly feature on Artagem: The Creator Highlight. I'll take a moment from time to time to point you to the home sites of creators I appreciate, whether they're other web comics, fine artists or just general troublemakers.
Taken from Crowley's site: What Nonsense is a humorous horror/suspense comic featuring anthropomorphic animal characters. The story follows the lives of the slightly deranged residents of "Nawncentz Inn," a remote vacation home, and the confused man who has been forced to live with them. I'd say there's nothing too adult about this story, save for some violence and cursing. It's recommended for ages 14 and up.
More after the break.
Taken from Crowley's site: What Nonsense is a humorous horror/suspense comic featuring anthropomorphic animal characters. The story follows the lives of the slightly deranged residents of "Nawncentz Inn," a remote vacation home, and the confused man who has been forced to live with them. I'd say there's nothing too adult about this story, save for some violence and cursing. It's recommended for ages 14 and up.
More after the break.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Stray Flights #1: Desiccate, Page 8
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And we have arrived at the final page! Can you believe it? Now, a good editor would no doubt tell me that this page is unnecessary as well, but here it is nonetheless. I couldn't help myself, I wanted some kind of capping image for the little story, and the Pierre Loti quote just really served to bring home the message of madness inside Paul.
The crazy continues after the break.
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| Click to Enlarge |
The crazy continues after the break.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Hey, It's Time To Talk About: Swamp Thing, Book 1
That which you absorb with your eyes and ears is just as important as that which is spun from the fingers. Therefore, take a moment to pause for a little review:
Saga Of The Swamp Thing, Book 1 by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben
Much has been written about Alan Moore and I probably won't bring anything new to the table here but I did want to offer my perspective on this singular book (series). Like many, my first introduction to the work of Alan Moore was The Watchmen. He's of course a legend to many, a god to fanboys, and the mad devotee of Glycon, and his influence in the field is immeasurable. I could write whole posts just about Moore but this is a review of Swamp Thing.
'Moore' after the break.
Saga Of The Swamp Thing, Book 1 by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben
Much has been written about Alan Moore and I probably won't bring anything new to the table here but I did want to offer my perspective on this singular book (series). Like many, my first introduction to the work of Alan Moore was The Watchmen. He's of course a legend to many, a god to fanboys, and the mad devotee of Glycon, and his influence in the field is immeasurable. I could write whole posts just about Moore but this is a review of Swamp Thing.
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| Swamp Thing, the loneliest hero |
'Moore' after the break.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Chandra, Page 20: I Know The Base Like The Back Of My Own Hand
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Whoa, lotsa dialogue! And here he is, our fearless leader of Chandra, Commander Henry Davis, training away to keep himself fit, and fight the withering effects of the moon's light gravity. These first twenty pages were finished exactly one year ago today, crazy huh? It's strange looking back because I feel I've learned SO MUCH about making graphic novels since first drawing these. Despite the big blocks of text, I think this page is successful enough in most ways.
Let's break it down after the break.
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| Click to Enlarge |
Let's break it down after the break.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Chandra, Page 19: Oh. That Looks Deep.
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What works? The first and second panels are fantastic. I think they really breathe and though I broke the 180 degree of action rule (great discussion here on Mark Kennedy's really awesome blog) by placing the camera on opposite sides from one panel to the next, it still totally works. There's also a really great swooping effect of the composition of panel two. They eye skitters from the vent and Jason's work, to the picture, over his back to the toolkit, and on to the doctor's words and posture.
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Good morning ladies and gentlemen! A sunny day here, in contrast to mushy post-Irene last week, and with it, page 19. Jason and Dr. Bannister begin their investigation of the good doctor's quarters.
We'll break it down further after the break.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Stray Flights #1: Desiccate, Page 7
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Shock! Gasp! And Reveal! Turns out things aren't as they seem for ol' Paul. Yes, this is shaping up to be stealth advertising for a filter product that doesn't exist. By the by, can you believe there's only one page of 'Desiccate' left? IN TWO WEEKS there will be a brand new Stray Flight debuting in this spot!
Continued after the break.
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| Click to Enlarge |
Continued after the break.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Leftover # 1: Gambled And Lost
This is just a simple single sheet drawing I did today. I'm working on a slightly looser style, but finding it difficult to let go. For that reason this didn't come together exactly as I wanted but it was a lot of fun to color though!
As always, Leftovers are simply experiments and non-contextual works that don't belong anywhere else.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Chandra, Page 18: I Would Not Recommend It
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Wow! Page 18 already, Chandra's officially an adult. This is one of the first pages I think actually works pretty well. It has a decent, cinematic feel to it that reflected what I was going for in my head, though the final panel ended up looking a little tacked on. But, I think the dialogue was a bit fun on this page at least.
Here is actually a pretty important point: That of final product matching initial idea. How does one make sure that they can follow through in creating the wonderful, amazing vision that is hovering in their mind? Some would argue that skill is the great deciding factor here. That those creators with more facility will always be able to chase their visions down and wrangle them more effectively into the real world. Skill must be honed by hours bent over the drawing table, or standing at the easel or whatever. But most importantly skill must be open to change and adaptation. How many of you out there have worked through a composition only to stumble into something better than you first imagined? Happy accidents huh?
Continued after the break.
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| Click to Enlarge |
Wow! Page 18 already, Chandra's officially an adult. This is one of the first pages I think actually works pretty well. It has a decent, cinematic feel to it that reflected what I was going for in my head, though the final panel ended up looking a little tacked on. But, I think the dialogue was a bit fun on this page at least.
Here is actually a pretty important point: That of final product matching initial idea. How does one make sure that they can follow through in creating the wonderful, amazing vision that is hovering in their mind? Some would argue that skill is the great deciding factor here. That those creators with more facility will always be able to chase their visions down and wrangle them more effectively into the real world. Skill must be honed by hours bent over the drawing table, or standing at the easel or whatever. But most importantly skill must be open to change and adaptation. How many of you out there have worked through a composition only to stumble into something better than you first imagined? Happy accidents huh?
Continued after the break.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
1000 Things To Learn, #3: Uploading Images To The Internet Without Losing Color Fidelity
Warning! Bunch of technical stuff follows. May not be for everyone. Skip down to the last post to get to a Chandra page.
As I broke it down in THIS POST, I'd been uploading images to this website with an incorrect color profile. I was wondering why they were looking so washed out and ragged. Well, it turns out that you have to really pay attention to the 'color space' of the file in Photoshop and then in the internet. The analogy used is that of a box of crayons, the internet has a smaller box than Photoshop, so you have to be very specific with what colors you tell it to use. LUCKILY this is an easy fix.
Some websites seem to adapt the file automatically (smartly), others, like Blogger, don't. Also, it should be borne in mind that the large thumbnail images that are created for a graphic file are always washed out a certain amount. I can't seem to figure out how to affect that.
Color is a really tricky business and I know when it comes time to actually make a graphic novel, meaning, print one up, there will be a whole host of new headaches. But for now, let's limit ourselves to uploading properly.
Continued after the break.
As I broke it down in THIS POST, I'd been uploading images to this website with an incorrect color profile. I was wondering why they were looking so washed out and ragged. Well, it turns out that you have to really pay attention to the 'color space' of the file in Photoshop and then in the internet. The analogy used is that of a box of crayons, the internet has a smaller box than Photoshop, so you have to be very specific with what colors you tell it to use. LUCKILY this is an easy fix.
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| The Dark Knight in an Unsaturated Nightmare...and Restored! |
Color is a really tricky business and I know when it comes time to actually make a graphic novel, meaning, print one up, there will be a whole host of new headaches. But for now, let's limit ourselves to uploading properly.
Continued after the break.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Chandra, Page 17: Looking For Me Stud?
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Welcome back Loonies! Let's just get this out of the way: The first panel has all the stiffness of a high school production of 'Waiting For Godot.' Furthermore, Dr. McBee looks terrible in the second panel and Jason's face is a bit scrunchy in the third panel. BUT, the fourth panel, I can't find much fault there, I like it (Though Dr. Bannister is slightly walleyed). I'm also partial to the final frame. There was a lot of space to play with there and I was able to put some big rips in to remind everyone that Chandra Base is falling apart. The problem remains though, I never took the time to get enough detail into the pages.
This brings me to the issue of QUALITY CONTROL. Sometimes, for me at least, when I've started a project I feel there's some kind of drive to finish it at a breakneck pace, as if it were a race. I speed through the project blindly, hoping on hope that the final package will be good enough so that everyone will ignore any inadequacies. This is obviously wrong. If there's one major lesson I've learned over the last year it's this: Take your time with all that you do. Don't let it out the door until it's trimmed, polished and sewn up tight. There's this quote, I don't know, maybe I'm misquoting it but I can't find the thing on the internet. It's from The Fountainhead By Ayn Rand, the protagonist, Roark says to another character: "My failures go into the trash, whereas yours end up on the wall." I could be way off base here with the wording or attribution, someone correct me if I am. Anyway, I always liked this quote because it summed up a beautiful work ethic, to never settle for second rate work from your own hands.
Of course that doesn't apply to Chandra. In some kind of masochistic way I want this in the public eye so that I'm accountable to showing you something better. And I can get feedback on what didn't work here when I was making this graphic novel. Sure, I'm plenty critical on myself, but I want to hear from others as well. So, chime in!
Yeah, The Fountainhead is divisive, but come on, it's a cultural and philosophical touchstone, read it if you haven't!
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| Click to Enlarge |
Welcome back Loonies! Let's just get this out of the way: The first panel has all the stiffness of a high school production of 'Waiting For Godot.' Furthermore, Dr. McBee looks terrible in the second panel and Jason's face is a bit scrunchy in the third panel. BUT, the fourth panel, I can't find much fault there, I like it (Though Dr. Bannister is slightly walleyed). I'm also partial to the final frame. There was a lot of space to play with there and I was able to put some big rips in to remind everyone that Chandra Base is falling apart. The problem remains though, I never took the time to get enough detail into the pages.
This brings me to the issue of QUALITY CONTROL. Sometimes, for me at least, when I've started a project I feel there's some kind of drive to finish it at a breakneck pace, as if it were a race. I speed through the project blindly, hoping on hope that the final package will be good enough so that everyone will ignore any inadequacies. This is obviously wrong. If there's one major lesson I've learned over the last year it's this: Take your time with all that you do. Don't let it out the door until it's trimmed, polished and sewn up tight. There's this quote, I don't know, maybe I'm misquoting it but I can't find the thing on the internet. It's from The Fountainhead By Ayn Rand, the protagonist, Roark says to another character: "My failures go into the trash, whereas yours end up on the wall." I could be way off base here with the wording or attribution, someone correct me if I am. Anyway, I always liked this quote because it summed up a beautiful work ethic, to never settle for second rate work from your own hands.
Of course that doesn't apply to Chandra. In some kind of masochistic way I want this in the public eye so that I'm accountable to showing you something better. And I can get feedback on what didn't work here when I was making this graphic novel. Sure, I'm plenty critical on myself, but I want to hear from others as well. So, chime in!
Yeah, The Fountainhead is divisive, but come on, it's a cultural and philosophical touchstone, read it if you haven't!
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Stray Flights #1: Desiccate, Page 6
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There are trees down all around the outside of the house but the threat of the innocuous sounding Hurricane Irene is over. I almost (SERIOUSLY almost) ran my car into a downed tree on the highway last night. Scary stuff. To all of you more closely affected by the Hurricane, here's hoping you're all alright.
BUT, I survived and I'm bringing you, my friends, page 6 of 'Desiccate' wherein our hero is at the edge of a surprise. You can probably guess where this is going from here. I think the textures turned out great on this page. There's not quite enough expression in the protagonist's face there in the last panel, but our sound effect text is willing to shoulder some of the dramatic burden.
You can see I'm still experimenting with 'camera' placement when making graphic novels and stories. There's no real reason to have the first panel pulled back so far. In fact, this page went through a lot of revision in the thumbnail state. I originally had it at six panels, zooming into Peter's face over a much longer period of time, but, we're striving for punchiness here. Three panels seemed to do the trick better and with more kick. Turn the page next Sunday for 'the BIG reveal!' (HINT: Train your sharp eyes on the background of the last panel.)
Friday, August 26, 2011
Chandra, Page 16: Kiss Ol' Miss Earth
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It seems here that our dear Dr. Bannister is heading home. I had a good time drawing both of these characters, each of them have a fun look to play around with, from Dr. McBee's dumpy habitus to Dr. Bannister's aesthetic of rumpled academic. There's still a real measure of stiffness in the characters in this clinic scene. I find tinges of things that I like, but overall the people feel like their floating in time, stuck into positions that don't feel altogether natural. The doubling up of the first and second panel also irks me for some reason. It's hard to get an immediate feel for the different angles of view that suit a particular scene but I am a firm believer that there is always a better, and perhaps even a best, way to do something.
I am happy with how that anatomical chart turned out though. I'm also fond of the angle over Dr. Bannister's shoulder in the fourth panel.
See everyone Sunday, provided my house is still here and not carried away by the flood!
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| Click to Enlarge |
It seems here that our dear Dr. Bannister is heading home. I had a good time drawing both of these characters, each of them have a fun look to play around with, from Dr. McBee's dumpy habitus to Dr. Bannister's aesthetic of rumpled academic. There's still a real measure of stiffness in the characters in this clinic scene. I find tinges of things that I like, but overall the people feel like their floating in time, stuck into positions that don't feel altogether natural. The doubling up of the first and second panel also irks me for some reason. It's hard to get an immediate feel for the different angles of view that suit a particular scene but I am a firm believer that there is always a better, and perhaps even a best, way to do something.
I am happy with how that anatomical chart turned out though. I'm also fond of the angle over Dr. Bannister's shoulder in the fourth panel.
See everyone Sunday, provided my house is still here and not carried away by the flood!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Chandra Page 15: Spikoot!
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Well, here we meet members seven and eight of our Chandra crew. Two doctors, including the aforementioned, mysterious Dr. Bannister that Jason was looking for. I wanted Dr. McBee to smoke and really be a crusty old bird but I chose to make her chew tobacco instead. Considering the air filters there on the base it seemed a logical change.
Also, for those of you that may have caught it yesterday and this morning, ignore my foray into Wordpress. I'm sticking her on Blogger for the time being.
Also, for those of you that may have caught it yesterday and this morning, ignore my foray into Wordpress. I'm sticking her on Blogger for the time being.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Stray Flights #1: Desiccate, Page 5
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Ah, succor at last. Water, safety. Scott's gonna take care of everything. If I may permit myself to be a bit critical of...myself, given the whole scheme of 'Desiccate,' which you will see is only eight pages, this page is almost unnecessary. A good editor would probably come along and tell me to cut it right out to make the tale a spot punchier. And really, I'm inclined to agree, though I'm still partial to the various 'camera' angles showing us a bit more of the gas station. It is COMPLETELY arbitrary that I stuck an angle outside in the second panel though. Experimentation, that's what it's all about!
One thing to point out. The case with the drinks is the first time I ever tried out what are called 'color holds.' A color hold is when the actual inking (the black) is replaced with a color, in this case a sort of blue in an attempt to show bottles behind cool glass. I felt it was reasonably successful for a first go at it. Thoughts?
Oh wait, you know, I just realized, everything behind the gas station windows are holds too. Okay, new game, spot the holds.
Ah, succor at last. Water, safety. Scott's gonna take care of everything. If I may permit myself to be a bit critical of...myself, given the whole scheme of 'Desiccate,' which you will see is only eight pages, this page is almost unnecessary. A good editor would probably come along and tell me to cut it right out to make the tale a spot punchier. And really, I'm inclined to agree, though I'm still partial to the various 'camera' angles showing us a bit more of the gas station. It is COMPLETELY arbitrary that I stuck an angle outside in the second panel though. Experimentation, that's what it's all about!
One thing to point out. The case with the drinks is the first time I ever tried out what are called 'color holds.' A color hold is when the actual inking (the black) is replaced with a color, in this case a sort of blue in an attempt to show bottles behind cool glass. I felt it was reasonably successful for a first go at it. Thoughts?
Oh wait, you know, I just realized, everything behind the gas station windows are holds too. Okay, new game, spot the holds.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Chandra Page 14: Have You Heard The Good News?
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Good morning friends. Let's break it down. By now you're getting a bit of a sense of the characters of Pat and Danya, though they're a bit flat. I'm still pleased with the lighting and especially the point of view in the third panel. The fish in the second panel was one of the only times that I ventured into trying to get a slightly painterly texture going.
What doesn't work? Danya's face in the fourth panel is a complete failure. To be completely honest, I never felt like I got a handle on drawing him. Another problem with this page is the overall wordiness of the word bubbles. Let's talk about bubbles for a minute. As you may have read in my last post, I brought up thumbnails and the importance of spotting the locations for your bubbles early on. Now, when making the graphic novel Chandra, I did this badly. Basically I wrote the script, then converted it to thumbnails with no consideration of where the written dialogue would fit in. A rookie mistake. What happened when it came time to work the bubbles in was that I realized I'd not left enough room when drawing the thing in the first place, consequently I had to edit a lot of the dialogue so that it would fit in the proscribed areas. Now I've learned. Let me make these mistakes so you don't have to.
Good morning friends. Let's break it down. By now you're getting a bit of a sense of the characters of Pat and Danya, though they're a bit flat. I'm still pleased with the lighting and especially the point of view in the third panel. The fish in the second panel was one of the only times that I ventured into trying to get a slightly painterly texture going.
What doesn't work? Danya's face in the fourth panel is a complete failure. To be completely honest, I never felt like I got a handle on drawing him. Another problem with this page is the overall wordiness of the word bubbles. Let's talk about bubbles for a minute. As you may have read in my last post, I brought up thumbnails and the importance of spotting the locations for your bubbles early on. Now, when making the graphic novel Chandra, I did this badly. Basically I wrote the script, then converted it to thumbnails with no consideration of where the written dialogue would fit in. A rookie mistake. What happened when it came time to work the bubbles in was that I realized I'd not left enough room when drawing the thing in the first place, consequently I had to edit a lot of the dialogue so that it would fit in the proscribed areas. Now I've learned. Let me make these mistakes so you don't have to.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
1000 Things To Learn, #2: The Curriculum, Part 1
I previously enumerated the different branches of what I'm calling The Curriculum, HERE. I thought I'd take a moment to list these things out in greater detail. The Curriculum is what, in my estimation, it takes to become successful at making a graphic novel. At least, I think so. These seem to be the things that need to be focused on to get where I want to be. These items are listed in order of their chronological place in the actual creation of a graphic story. I'll be dissecting each of these in greater depth in future posts. Am I rambling? Here are numbers 1 - 6. Let's see if this makes sense:
Scripting - This is where it all starts. You need a story before you draw a damn thing and you've got to write that story convincingly. What's one of the best ways to learn to write convincingly? By reading. Read as much as you can, not just Graphic novels and comics, read everything you can get your hands on.
Art Direction - What is the ultimate look of the final product? Will it have a solid Jack Kirby spin to it or are you going for the fluid line of Yoshitaka Amano? Gather your influences about yourself and distill them down into the important elements that you want to visually represent.
Anatomy - This is a bit of an outlier. Anatomy is something you should be working on ALL THE TIME. Even if you're ultimately cartooning. Draw from life, draw from photos, draw from statues. Learn how muscles and bone fit together. Learn where fat gathers. The comic artist David Finch says he drew every page in Bridgman's Drawing From Life three times and then did it again with the book closed. I can't think of a much better task to set for oneself.
Character Design - At this point you probably already have a pretty good idea what your characters will look like. Here is where your project will really start to come to life though. Draw those characters in different clothing, with different expressions. Go wild at this point as you try to nail down what exactly this person or creature will look like. When you have designs that you're happy with then it's time to draw what are called Turnarounds. That is, draw them from the front, back and at least one side, focusing on the continuity of the character.
Thumbnails - Here begins the visualization of your project. The more you include in this step, the better time you'll have later on. They say: "More time on the front end, means less time on the back end." Or if you want to go old wives': "A stitch in time saves nine." What I mean is you should get as much detail and direction into your thumbnails as possible. Include lighting direction and placement of word bubbles, everything.
Cartooning - This is something that manga artists really excel at. Sometimes, being that comics are a static medium, you need to really ramp up the emotion. Rather than just simply making the text in the word balloon bold and adding exclamation points, you might need to tweak the features and emotions of the character. It can come in handy to have the confidence to step outside reality sometimes.
My goal over the past few weeks has been to buckle down on this curriculum as hard as possible, studying and practicing the different items on the list whenever I have spare time. Feeling adventurous, like you want to hone your own chops? Join me!
Stay tuned for number 7 - 12 next week.
Scripting - This is where it all starts. You need a story before you draw a damn thing and you've got to write that story convincingly. What's one of the best ways to learn to write convincingly? By reading. Read as much as you can, not just Graphic novels and comics, read everything you can get your hands on.
Art Direction - What is the ultimate look of the final product? Will it have a solid Jack Kirby spin to it or are you going for the fluid line of Yoshitaka Amano? Gather your influences about yourself and distill them down into the important elements that you want to visually represent.
The sensual feel of Yoshitaka Amano
Anatomy - This is a bit of an outlier. Anatomy is something you should be working on ALL THE TIME. Even if you're ultimately cartooning. Draw from life, draw from photos, draw from statues. Learn how muscles and bone fit together. Learn where fat gathers. The comic artist David Finch says he drew every page in Bridgman's Drawing From Life three times and then did it again with the book closed. I can't think of a much better task to set for oneself.
Character Design - At this point you probably already have a pretty good idea what your characters will look like. Here is where your project will really start to come to life though. Draw those characters in different clothing, with different expressions. Go wild at this point as you try to nail down what exactly this person or creature will look like. When you have designs that you're happy with then it's time to draw what are called Turnarounds. That is, draw them from the front, back and at least one side, focusing on the continuity of the character.
Thumbnails - Here begins the visualization of your project. The more you include in this step, the better time you'll have later on. They say: "More time on the front end, means less time on the back end." Or if you want to go old wives': "A stitch in time saves nine." What I mean is you should get as much detail and direction into your thumbnails as possible. Include lighting direction and placement of word bubbles, everything.
Cartooning - This is something that manga artists really excel at. Sometimes, being that comics are a static medium, you need to really ramp up the emotion. Rather than just simply making the text in the word balloon bold and adding exclamation points, you might need to tweak the features and emotions of the character. It can come in handy to have the confidence to step outside reality sometimes.
My goal over the past few weeks has been to buckle down on this curriculum as hard as possible, studying and practicing the different items on the list whenever I have spare time. Feeling adventurous, like you want to hone your own chops? Join me!
Stay tuned for number 7 - 12 next week.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Chandra Page 13: Dominion Over All The Fish In The Sea
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Compositionally it works well enough no? Chandra is made up of three pods, and the agricultural one is called Hasta, thus the 'H' before the floor numbers as they descend the stairs. One thing I feel I did NOT get across well enough in Chandra is a real sense of the space inside the base. I think there could stand to be a lot more focus on seeing the environment that our little crew inhabits. In fact, one of the main focuses I had when writing the script was trying to fully show the feeling of isolation they're experiencing and I really think I might have failed on that point. Though, the lighting was really fun to work on on this page.
Compositionally it works well enough no? Chandra is made up of three pods, and the agricultural one is called Hasta, thus the 'H' before the floor numbers as they descend the stairs. One thing I feel I did NOT get across well enough in Chandra is a real sense of the space inside the base. I think there could stand to be a lot more focus on seeing the environment that our little crew inhabits. In fact, one of the main focuses I had when writing the script was trying to fully show the feeling of isolation they're experiencing and I really think I might have failed on that point. Though, the lighting was really fun to work on on this page.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Stray Flights #1: Desiccate, Page 4
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EDIT: Okay, this is not a mistake that this page is posted twice. There's a lesson here: See that top page? That is how I've normally been uploading images. The colors are muted and NOT AT ALL as they were in Photochop when I colored the page. The page below is much closer (but not exactly) to the intended colors. See the explosion is much more saturated? All of the pages I've uploaded so far have been washed out and I finally realized the reason why. I was using the Photochop color profile, not the web color profile. Simple fix and now we're facing the right way in the saddle. I pledge to thee that all images henceforth will be uploaded correctly.
Good Morning, good morning. 'Desiccate' page four has arrived and with it, an answer to why our dear wanderer is in the desert in the first place. Something I was really trying to accomplish with the pages in this story was a kind of washed-out, beat up texture pervading everything. I think it was pretty successful, using paint textures applied over the flat coloring of the pages. It's not necessarily a technique I'd use for a larger project but I think it ended up suiting this story nicely and it might turn up in another Stray Flight in the future. Other minor aspects I'm pleased about: the way the background desert falls away, blurred as it is, and the explosion. Funnily enough, when I first colored the explosion in Photochop it looked too realistic, it brought too much attention to itself. I ended up applying a bunch of filters to it to try to knock down the edge and make it more graphic looking.
This brings me to an important point: I wonder what everyone thinks of this. I've noticed along the way, through my perambulations and perusals of comics and graphic novels that often, not always, but often, the more realistic the artwork is, the more staged/stilted it ends up looking, and the more it might take the reader out of the story. Notable exceptions to this are Ex Machina (Vaughn and Harris) and Moonshadow (DeMatteis and Muth), which I ADORE.
I mean, something that looks silly, but I know is relatively popular in other countries are those photo graphic novels, where it's a stack of film stills or photos comprising the story, with word balloons pointing around. Does anyone like those? I just find them to be so lackluster.
Also, please check out Andrew Bosley's Brainstormer, that's where I cooked up the idea for this Stray Flight.
Good Morning, good morning. 'Desiccate' page four has arrived and with it, an answer to why our dear wanderer is in the desert in the first place. Something I was really trying to accomplish with the pages in this story was a kind of washed-out, beat up texture pervading everything. I think it was pretty successful, using paint textures applied over the flat coloring of the pages. It's not necessarily a technique I'd use for a larger project but I think it ended up suiting this story nicely and it might turn up in another Stray Flight in the future. Other minor aspects I'm pleased about: the way the background desert falls away, blurred as it is, and the explosion. Funnily enough, when I first colored the explosion in Photochop it looked too realistic, it brought too much attention to itself. I ended up applying a bunch of filters to it to try to knock down the edge and make it more graphic looking.
This brings me to an important point: I wonder what everyone thinks of this. I've noticed along the way, through my perambulations and perusals of comics and graphic novels that often, not always, but often, the more realistic the artwork is, the more staged/stilted it ends up looking, and the more it might take the reader out of the story. Notable exceptions to this are Ex Machina (Vaughn and Harris) and Moonshadow (DeMatteis and Muth), which I ADORE.
I mean, something that looks silly, but I know is relatively popular in other countries are those photo graphic novels, where it's a stack of film stills or photos comprising the story, with word balloons pointing around. Does anyone like those? I just find them to be so lackluster.
Also, please check out Andrew Bosley's Brainstormer, that's where I cooked up the idea for this Stray Flight.
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