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.
That's some seriously stylised trees (perhaps they inspired Eileen's hair), but I like them and think they work. There's no perspective to speak of working here but after sketching an early version of this using proper perspective I just didn't like it, perhaps because of the odd looking trees. More panel repetition and straigtforward composition, but I like it here because of the back of the bench unifying it a little - little confession, these panel had to be reversed and redrawn cos I got Hugo and Derek the wrong way round, oops, that's like drawing an extra finger on someone's hand (which I've also done once or twice). Jason pointed out that it might not be immediately apparent that the note Derek is holding was previously stuck to Hugo's face, I have asked AccentUk if I can redo it, but it's not looking likely.
This page went through a complete layout change, mainly based around how to do the first panel. The script asked for the setting to be a modern bank in an old fashioned building and I had originally planned to have the panel run the width of the page, but as I'd already worked out the last panel and liked it as it was I realised panels 2 and 3 would be cramped. Also the old fashioned banks are all about ceilings, so I did a rejig and came up with this page. My slow thinking on this meant it was the last page I drew and as such it's rushed - the ceiling is the only thing that says 'bank' in panel 1 (ever tried to take a photo of a bank interior? Frowned upon.) The last panel highlights a bit of mistake I always make, I get grabbed by an idea for only part of image and then have to fit the rest of artwork around it. Still, that's some nice zombie biting action:)
A bit more background on this page and a work on Eileen's outfit wouldn't have gone amiss. The challenge of this page, and the first 3 to some degree, is that there's 3 people close together reacting to each other, compositionally that's tough (for me, anyway) to do and keep things interesting. Fortunately there was a clue in Jason's script that asked for a panel to be repeated so I went for more repetition. I think the column of panels on the right works better than the left, Hugo slumping is a nice touch (Jason's touch not mine) and I'm pleased with the slight zoom to the newspaper with Hugo and Derek poking over the top. Eileen's hand in p3 is supposed to give the impression that she's barely looked at the form, not a bad idea, but I'm not so sure I pulled it off - although Jason emailed me and did meantion he like the hands in the story, so maybe I did! As scripted panels 5 and 6 were actually one panel, I split them as I liked the symmetry of layout and it made it easier to show everyone's faces and the newspaper headline.
As I've not heard that I shouldn't post this I've decided to go put up the 1st page from Zombie of the Great Unwashed with a bit of added commentary. cFirst panel and the face should've been bigger to make more impact, but there was a fair bit to put in the rest of the panels and quite a bit of dialogue (Jason likes dialogue and I like Jason's dialogue so even though he was fine with changes I tried to avoid them) as well as the title. I thought about having dramatic lighting or a black background to make it jump out, and play against the everyday settings, but in the end went with sparse background (intentional for once!) and my usual heavy inking for Hugo. The large word balloon's had a missing word artlessly shoved in driving home the need to sort out an art package on my Mac. Lack of background in the next panel might not get the point across that this scene is in a Job Centre. Pulling back to show more of the setting would've helped but I think the main characters are small enough. The guy in the star t-shirt is from a comic I did waaaay back, sad to see him all washed up, but them's the breaks. Last tier's a bit crushed (particularly p4 with it's questionable foreshortening!), but I wanted p2 to run the width of the page, so it had to be. The last panel was originally meant to be the first panel of the next page but I got all 'meta-panelly'.
I don't want to moan about my artwork on these posts, but I will say I find this page the least effective. A bit more in the way of backgrounds and a bit more work on Eileen's outfit wouldn't have gone amiss. The challenge of this page, and the first 3 to some degree, is that there's 3 people close together reacting to each other, compositionally that's tough (for me, anyway) to do and keep things interesting. Fortunately there was a clue in Jason's script that asked for a panel to be repeated so I went for more repetition. I think the column of panels on the right works better than the left, Hugo slumping is a nice touch (Jason's touch not mine) and I'm pleased with the slight zoom to the newspaper with Hugo and Derek poking over the top. Eileen's hand in p3 is supposed to give the impression that she's barely looked at the form, not a bad idea, but I'm not so sure I pulled it off. As scripted panels 5 and 6 were actually one panel, I split them as I liked the symetry of layout and it made it easier to show everyone's faces and the newspaper headline.
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!
