Something new. There's an internship at Cartoon Network that I'm foolishly trying out for. Though they'll accept comics as entries, they really want to see some actual boards as that's what the whole thing is about. So I thought I'd board out some of the opening of Ghiroy as if it was going to be a cartoon show. This is my first attempt at it. I'm not displeased.
The stuff I'm working on lately is long range stuff, so there haven't been comic pages to post. Did this the other day in response to having been watching and doing research on Ralph Bakshi. Not much, just a skanky elf on the streets of San Gimignano. Or some fantasy town that will be the basis of the town in Ghiroy.
Progress on the Mass Ave print. I'm going back and forth with elements, from foreground to background, partially because I get bored of repetitive things like cutting little holes in the snow (not completely satisfied with just that anyway) and making tiny windows that are almost invisible. So this morning I tackled the foreground store, partially to see if things were going to work or not. I think they are. The color palette is not what I was thinking it would be, but I think it will work just fine. It's a lot warmer than I expected. I just want to make sure that, when done, it looks solid and cold. I've also changed the subject from a single character to a pair, one with an arm wrapped around the other. It's going to be an unofficial portrait of my partner and I as two of our characters.
Progress, but really just the beginning. Finished the tracing, which mostly used the daytime photo. The right hand side, starting about the middle of the image is all the night time version because I liked the wider, emptier sidewalk better. The image is meant to evoke loneliness and will eventually have a single figure striding towards the camera, shoulders hunched against the wind. I took the Procreate file and dumped it right into Designer then started poking about. I was working on the stuff in the background first but then realized I wanted to get a sense of the entire layout first so threw some colors in. Was surprised to see that sort of trigger-color palette working the way it is and also that the sampled colors were so warm. I'll likely try to keep an eye on the balance and make the palette mostly out of these colors or ones that are based off them. They work together really well, I think. Will also try and make little bits of each of the other two colors sneak into the realms of the third at any given time, if that makes sense. I know what I mean. Those windows in the back are TINY. Then again, so was the butcher shop in the Tokyo image, and that didn't even exist. Hope this comes out well. I think it will.
Working on another print for this winter. I took the photo I'm using as reference about two years ago in winter as I walked from Central to Harvard Square on my way to meet friends for dinner. It was damned cold and the street was fairly empty. I just meant the photo as reference for City Silent or something like it. I was really taken by the solitude of it later on and thought it would make a good addition to the print series. Then I tried to work on it but could never really get a handle. I tried to eyeball it but kept having trouble, even using a grid. So it got set aside and nothing happened. Now that I have the iPad and Apple Pencil, I have a much easier way to get the details down; tracing. Generally, I don't like doing this because it seems like cheating and, in a way, it is. I thought about it a lot, came across a lot of other examples of tracing in art from fine art to animation and no one batted an eye in any of those cases (well, in the case of fine art, people got pissed at David Hockney's suggestion that artist would have to resort to such things). And as I thought about it, I realized that I wasn't going to do an 'every square inch lovingly traced down to the last molecule' kind of thing. What I really wanted was a suggestion for details so that I could build the background slowly in Designer like I did for the Tokyo print. That one had no tracing, except for the cobblestones and, in some places, it's a mess. Thing is, even with a tracing, I'm going to be constantly interpreting, changing and making the image my own. And so I got over it. And I'm moving on with the project, which is better.
Ghiroy page 33. Trying to work more with expressions. As such, I'm posing for these and I think it's helping. Ricken is the dullest figure even if he kind of has center stage. I just wanted him to be solid, to look like he's coming from a position of strength. Crow is all twisted up. He and his older brother don't get along really well. There will be more with this later. Worried that Fran was getting a little lost but I think she's ok. I think there's still a sense of that graffiti quality of earlier pages though it is toned down a bit. Always experimenting.
Ghiroy page 31. Been more in the mind to work on this comic lately than City Silent. Worked a little extra long on the background for this one as I thought it important to establish the setting. Also, while I like the style of the older pages, it was getting a little claustrophobic. This will push me to do a little more with the backgrounds in the future, I think. The city is based on San Gimignano, which I visited in 2012. Italy has all these wonderful old walled towns that are still alive and vital. Their architecture hasn't changed in 2,000 years because I guess the Italians got it right the first time. Usually, D+D tends towards western Europe for its towns and castles, but I really like the Italian aesthetic here. It's different than the usual turdor. Was especially happy with the Francesca in this one.
Working on a new character for the comic; Ricken, Crow's brother. He's not a nice guy. Kind of a jerk, really. But he's important to Crow's development so I wanted to do a decent image of him before I had to actually include him in the comic.
Edit: added a much more colorful version, something that would be more in fitting with the comic's palette now. Ooh, my eyes are burning.
Sketches of the Ghiroy crowd trying to work out the newer style. I like them; I think they're more animated, more lively, more real. As usual, I have no idea how to make something that appeals to any kind of audience. The current page and sketches have garnered almost no response. I wonder what it's like to have a support network...
Page 30. Worked with the new style I was poking about with last night. The characters feel more substantial to me, more like different, actual people and hell, even Fran looks like a woman for a change. It feels more natural to draw this way and it makes me take a little more time drawing the figures, which I should be doing. That being said, there's been little reaction to it. Of course, there never is. I like it better, so I'll be moving on with it at least for the time being. Also, the colors are popping a good deal more than they were before.
I've been working on the colors and such for Ghiroy lately but am still struggling with the characters, which I really shouldn't be. I think a lot of the later pages are lackluster and just off. I was sketching tonight and came up with a somewhat new take, trying to be more free, less tight perhaps a little more flowing and even, if there is one, off model. Only did Crow, because he's my favorite but I really like what came out. Of course, it remains to be seen if I can maintain this or not.
This page came more quickly than the last one, partially because it's so simple and partially because, once again, I reused letters from the opening of the comic. Cheating, yes, but so what? Any time someone uses a font, isn't that the same thing? Getting them out of the dungeon is a move that will allow me to do some more, I think. Maybe this comic will actually become something.
