Archive for May, 2010
13 items.
Not thrilled with this page. The chrono-whatsit I wanted to emerge from Darumatha didn’t end up looking good at all, nor was I able to manage the transmission from the starry sky with Darumatha present to the snowy evening sky. Eh, they can’t all be good.
[ Comments Off ]
One reason I like writing Anthem is that it lets me try to write someone who is actually a teenager. And while being fifteen years old carries different cultural baggage in our world and in a magical pre-industrial society surrounded by hostile aliens and meddling gods, there are certain constants. One of them is that no teenager can properly scale her behavior to the gravity of the situation. Ex-friend you wronged coming for a visit? Catatonic hysteria. Squirming cosmic blasphemy come for your soul? Cool insouciance.
I’m thrilled that I got a slightly overhead view of Anthem in the sixth panel (lower-left), though the bureau isn’t quite perfect.
[ 1 Comment ]
Slurp! Boasting carries its risks.
I’m still not sure about my font choices here. While I want Darumatha’s voice to be distinct, since Darumatha is nothing like even the other powers in the story, “fancy fonts” and flashy word balloons can look chintzy. I’ve been missing around with a few possibilities, so far with no luck. If I find something I really like, I might go back and standardize it back through the comic.
[ 1 Comment ]
This page came together really well. Normally I hate my motion lines, but Mixabokes getting flung back through the window into the wall looks good. Even the splatter turned out well.
[ Comments Off ]
Sort of proud of myself for actually drawing all the backgrounds, except for the last panel. Also, it turns out that I really like drawing whiskers on statements like “oof.”
While I like how the breaking glass turned out, I’m not thrilled with the little puffballs I have for snow. It’s supposed to be heavy, clumping snow, but I’m worried it takes a second to figure out what it is, and that Mixabokes has carried Vish entirely outside the room.
Also, Anthem doesn’t know how to throw a punch. However, I’m glad the gesture is clear enough that I didn’t need to add motion lines, since my motion lines reliably look goofy.
[ Comments Off ]
Say what you want about Sergeant Deemo’s sweaty-fisted cowardice, in situations of great anxiety I tend to behave the same way. Wireless connection on the fritz? In five minutes I’m screaming about how I don’t give a damn about the women.
Not entirely thrilled with the perspective in panel 5, but I’m kind of proud of how I hid how wonky it is. Small victories.
[ Comments Off ]
I’m happy I was able to fit a lot of Anthem’s room into this page. Though the dimensions aren’t perfect, I’ve discovered that people confuse detail with competence, and I’m not above exploiting that. Should’ve added more books…
Still playing around with light and shadow. One of my problems is getting yellow-white gas light to show up next to the yellow-white walls of the inn; in retrospect that wasn’t the best choice.
Not entirely pleased with the “going through a wall” effect. I wanted something more…ripply? Unfortunately I only know a handful of Photoshop tricks, but I think it’s clear that the capture-box has passed through the wall. Incidentally, the layout of the inn does mostly make sense; Anthem’s room looks down on the bar area of the inn, where Arduna is having his discussion–You can occasionally see the door to her room in bar-room shots that show the walkway wrapping around the upper level.
[ Comments Off ]
She really needs to do something about those mood swings.
I still feel like an idiot that I didn’t put a full fireplace in Anthem’s room. I figure there’s got to be some sort of, I dunno, vent somewhere, since Gilgam spends all his time when he’s not onscreen fighting colossopods adding wyrd-level technology to the inn, but I would’ve preferred an actual fireplace.
[ Comments Off ]
Page 27 always seems important to me, since the first issue of my first comic, Broken Space, ran to 27 pages. I’ve long since given up feeling guilty about them running longer, though.
Still playing with the saturation and brightness; there’s less “drain” on this page than when underground, but it’s still noticeable. The slightly muted colors are just easier to look at, though it’s supposed to be a “night time” effect (it’s just after sunset when Anthem arrives).
I know I shouldn’t laugh at my own attempts at wit, but Anthem handing Arduna her hat like he’s a footman, and Arduna just tossing it under the bar like a bad peanut, makes me smile.
[ Comments Off ]
Another “six-panel” shot; I didn’t actually intend two in a row, but it’s kind of nice to have some room to work–to draw in something other than a tiny little rectangle that leaves extra space up top unless I fill it with words.
Trying to loosen up my inking a bit without making things sloppy. As someone without a very steady hand, I can really move only in two direction: toward a quavering, “neurotic” line (great if I’m an underground comix producer writing my semiautobiography in the 70s, I guess), or toward a sketchier, more ragged but more dynamic output.
I hate that word–”dynamic”–but I keep coming back to it as a goal despite not quite knowing what it is; it’s what causes most of my re-draws in the layout/sketching stage, this weird desire to pump more energy into my pictures without knowing quite how to do that. Right now I’m building up the repertoire of cheap tricks developed by better artists than me: tilted angles, foreshortening, three-point perspective, off-centered shots, hyper-athletic poses. Of course 1) I’m not very good at anatomy or perspective, and 2) WPK, despite the weirdness, is pretty down-to-earth; none of the characters moves like Spider-Man or Neo, so I’m squeezed by the dual concerns of wanting more energy–more “dynamism”–in my art while keeping things from getting too off-the-wall.
Having more fun messing around with color balance, trying to produce “sunset glows” and other nonsense. We’ll see how that works out.
[ 1 Comment ]