Process: Editing

 

Process. As I start adding figures to the opening page, there's a few things I'm trying to depict and keep in mind. First off, this is, in a way, a stage play. So I want the characters to "enter" the scene. The song will start but I want it to feel like performers on a stage. So there will be three sets of the mice, moving closer to the viewer. I'm starting with the set furthest away first. Smatt was up, so I took the ref photo, had it up on my screen, sketched it in pencil, scanned it the sent that image to my iPad. In Procreate, I inked it then sent the inked sketch back to my computer where I turned it into a vector image. Then, I dropped it into the file with the background, used the palette from one of the test images I did earlier and then resized the image, placing it far into the background. Something wasn't quite right, though, so I applied one of my usual fixes: I dropped out the line layer. Sure enough, the colored shapes alone told the story and, at that distance, showed that the lines really didn't matter. Like a spotlight, because of his bright colors, he draws your eye right back past all the graffiti to him. This will be different when I get the other figures in but so far, I like where this is going.

Do I regret the time I "wasted" inking the character? No, not at all. Because I wouldn't have got the shapes the way I did if I hadn't. It's also inking practice which is never bad. This is how I got to the style of the 'cutout' portraits and that worked out well, too.

I guess the point is that, because I work digitally, the editing process is possibly the longest part of the process. As I do each figure, I'll be resizing, rechecking the palette, moving them about and making other adjustments until the whole thing works together to my eye. This means that composition, final composition comes last. I don't recommend this approach, it's simply the way I've learned to work.

Note: in the pencil sketch, as usual, I drew the character in the wrong place so ran out of room for his right hand, which I had to draw separately and then re-attach in Procreate.