Bit of background here for a change, and it helps! There was originally supposed to be an exterior establishing shot of the burger place but Jason suggested it might not be necessary so I decided against it. Not sure if Jason was after Derek fancying the girl serving him but the dialogue seemed to suggest it to me so that's why he's grinning (not suffering from mumps!) and rubbing the back of his head in panel 2..... oh I am the master of body language! Went a bit over the top with Hugo's zombie lurch on p3, but dammit I like him!Panels 4 and 5 was originally one panel but I thought it'd be nice to slow the action of finger eating down. Not intended but the graphicy look of the last panel makes it feel like a nice full stop.... I think. Attempting to make the finger look exclamation mark like was intention, but as usual I'm not sure if that comes across.
And that's it, as whiney as I am about my work it's been fun and writing about it like this helps me see where I need to improve (background, backgrounds backgrounds!), hope you all enjoy the story and I'll let you know when the finished book comes out.
9 comments:
I don't know if the zombie lurch is too over-the-top. I mean, zombies aren't subtle creatures anyway.
Good point; huzzah!
This is great stuff. I hooked out a copy of a certain early piece of your work, and it was very interesting to compare the two. You've moved a long way from the early Hannah Barbera influences and the art has become so much more expressive. Basically I think I'm saying you've moved from being a technically proficient craftsman to being an artist. The page with the view of the park and the bandstand may not have perfect perspective but that's because you knew the rules on perspective and chose to break them so it works well as art.
This is great Paul. Zombie goodness gets my thumbs up! Your line work is lovely here, nice n choppy which suits the story to a tee.
Cheer Peter, very flattering. I guess you're talking about 'Fun Comics', a comic that fails to hold up and yet one I miss terribly!
Thanks Mr Bling, think this may have to be the last bite I let a zombie take out of my neck, time to move on. Be nice to move on to some paid work, I hope I'm getting closer to being good enough for it.
Very VERY cool. Really enjoyed this. MORE PLEASE. Love the art. The characters are all very strong. Would love to see this story animated. Hint. Hint.
Ta INJ, unfortunately unless it's an offer as well as a hint animation's unlikely, even though I'd love it and I'm sure Jason would too. I'm still finding my way round regular type drawing, and as much as I'd love to learn animation it'll sadly have to wait.... unless I can give up my day job, oh please can I give up my day job!
great! i really enjoyed reading this and i think your art work throughout is really strong.
also nice to read your thoughts on each page. it's interesting that you seem to think your backgrounds often let the panels down, but i think keeping the backgrounds relatively simple un-cluttered works very well. the bank and job centre seemed well observed to me, cut down to their key elements (an irreducible representation if you will), and the perspective in the park - as others have said - works brilliantly as an artistic composition. stylistically there seems to be no reason why real life issues such as perspective need to be rigourously adhered too, it depends on the tone of the piece and what you're trying to get across, and if you're after a stridently realist feel to the work.
and the dog biting on page 3 is ace!
Thanks Paul, irreducible representation is exactly what I'm aiming for, and I'll take pleasingly composed design over reality any day. But as Peter says, the key is to know when and why you're breaking the rules. The park scene I felt I understood, the bank one less so, it's not that it wasn't observed just that the final image didn't quite work - I'm tempted to redo it for myself now that I can see where it needs it, but it's more productive to just learn from it and use the lesson on the next piece.
Poor dog though:)
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