Keeping it Real part 2

In my last post, I talked about the importance of setting up a perspective grid as the first step in making an illustration.

The other important first step is research. (Exactly which of the two, grid vs research is step 1 and which is step 2 varies for me, depending on what I'm working on.)

Research can be looking up photos on the internet or visiting similar locations and taking photographs of my own. Either way, I'll collect a whole bunch of photos. And then I won't copy any of them, exactly. But I will use them to help me figure out what might be included in the background when I design my locations. If I do use photo reference, it's  as a reminder of what kinds of things are visible on a rooftop, for example, and then I make up my own versions of those things.

I looked up a whole bunch of reference photos for New York City rooftops for this, but I didn't use a single one of them verbatim (or whatever the photo version of "verbatim" woud be) I just used them to remind myself what kinds of things might be found on a roof.

Even if I am using my own photographs for a specific location, I won't make quite an exact copy. In this example, I copied but greatly simplified my photograph of the gates at Trinity Bellwoods Park to set up a specific location, including just enough detail to be recognizable and believable, but without being slavish to the photograph. I didn't want to put so much detail in the background that it became distracting, because the picture is about the white squirrel, not the park gates.

When I was working on Grawlix #2 (which got renumbered as #3 by the time it was released) I used a pillar from one room, and a table from another, and windows and  decorations that I completely made up, and combined them to design the bistro where our characters get together on page 2 of my story.

Set dressing helps to establish the story, and the character. You can use subtle details to support the story and move it forward, or to tell the reader something about the person in the room.

When I was given the job of designing the personal office space for Number Two in issue 2 of Holmes Incorporated, I looked up a lot of images on executive office space and furniture, as well as what other artists had drawn in issue 1.  

Then I took all of that, looked at all of it, and let it influence but not dictate my designs. I used what I already knew about the character to create a space that specifically appropriate to him.

Good background and props design provides an extra layer of communication and another reason for someone to re-read the story, and handled properly it can also help establish and maintain the pace of the story, guide the readers along, and help them get to know the people that inhabit the story world.

Keeping it Real

OK, I know. I get it. 

Constructions and perspective grids are not the funnest, sexiest parts of making a piece of art. There's always a real temptation to skip this step and get right to the good bits of doing the drawing.

The little X is to remind myself which of these lines was the horizon

There's a saying in building things that applies as well to drawing: Measure twice, cut once.

If you take the time to carefully plan your drawing, you're less likely to have the artwork turn out wonky, or end up having to erase and re-draw a bunch of stuff because you accidentally used two different points of view on the same composition*

* and before you say "what about cubism" these rules apply double, or triple in that case, because each of the different points of view presented has to be consistent with itself.

It also helps to establish the settings of your drawings as a real place that people could visit.

When I'm doing constructions I mostly just hint at the location. I lay down the framework so that when I do the detailed illlustrations later, I have a basic idea where the characters are in the setting, and what details need to be added to create a sense of place.

If your viewers believe they could really go to the place where your characters are, then it will give them another way to connect with your story. At least, it seems that way to me.

Taking flight

A while back, on what was practically a dare from a friend, I applied for a table in artist's alley at the Toronto ComiCON. 

And then, to my utter astonishment, I actually got in.

So, March 10-11 I'll be at table A51, with some prints and some artwork, and doing some sketches.

I figured that I would do up a special print for it, and throw in some local flavour.

Here's hint 1, my location photo reference.

 And here's hint #2, my initial construction lines.

So, if you're from Toronto and really, really nerdy you probably know where I'm going with this.

Other than that, here's a couple of other things I've got on hand.

 

So, here's me. Taking a deep breath and taking the plunge. Wish me luck.

Putting 'em up

So, there was some friendly smack talk over at Outcast Studios discussion boards, and now I've gotten myself signed up for Battle Artist on deviantArt. I guess I'm just a sucker for punishment because I'm out of my weight class going up against pretty much anyone else on the roster. But it's fun, and there's no particular shame in being 0 for 2.

The topic of the last battle was Ben 10, and we had a week to work on it.

The first thing I did was rent a DVD so I could learn what Ben 10 is. I'd heard of it, of course, because I haven't been living under a rock, but I'd never seen it. Incidentally, I will never get that theme song unstuck from my head now. I started out by filling out a couple of sketchbook pages while watching the show and getting an idea of the character.

While I was doing that, I also started working out what my own drawing was going to be about. 

I set up the composition on a simple, one-point perspective with the convergence point between Ben and his giant robot opponent, so that the piece is about the tension and the fight about to take place. Then I did a little design work on the giant robot arm itself so that I had a reference for it. These were done on a wee, 3x5 sketchpad during intermission at a concert. Because I like drawing, but I also like Beethoven.

I was happy enough with this sketch that I developed it a little more than I would usually do for a thumbnail sketch. And because the perspective is pretty straightforward, I skipped right to building a grid and rough construction on full-size comic board instead of making an intermediate construction and blowing it up on a copier. I forgot to scan that stage, though.

I added enough detail in the background to give a sense of location and what had happened up to this point in Ben's day, and checked that the composition still had energy to it. It still goes in a spiral, coming in down the robot arm, going up the black stripe on Ben's shirt, and then back down the pipes leading down the corridor, and even though the robot is closer to us and on the left hand side of the page, Ben is dominant, so it does what I intended.

I only sort of know what I'm doing with inking, but I managed to get some fairly clean lines down for this one, especially by my own standards. Looks like that inking class I'm taking from Ty Templeton is already paying off, halfway through.

And then, because I still had a day or so before the submission deadline, I decided to try doing some colours. I let the background be fairly dark and desaturated, so that Ben would stand out more.

So there you have it. That's how I throw down at an art fight.

I still lost, of course.

But my real opponent isn't whoever the randomizer stacks me against, my real opponent is myself.  And I'm making some pretty good drawings, and they're getting better all the time.

Work in Progress

I'm making a bit of headway on my Grawlix #2 story. Which is good, what with the finished pages being due in about ten days' time.

I had originally planned to use photo reference of a real restaurant in Toronto for the location on page 2, but after taking the pictures I realized that the restaurant layout would screw up my storytelling, so I went with an imaginary restaurant that has small, round tables and I just made a script margin scribble so I could make sure that the characters stayed in the right seating arrangement and that the right background shows up depending on which way the camera is facing.

I found some photo reference for the kind of office environment that Jacob and Simon would be working in. I figured if they're at an inbound tech support call center, then they wouldn't need very big cubicles. And since the cubicle does have a bit of a hero shot on page 2, I wanted to know what it looks like. It's a shallow one, where the dividers are only as deep as the desks.

The page thumbnails are all done, and they seem to read OK to me. I like that so far a couple of people who have seen them picked up right away on the very structured grid giving the reader a sense of security and something to grab onto while the events in the story go from bad to worse.

The little circles in the notes are for word bubbles, and the numbers inside the circles are how many words they are, so how big the word bubble will need to be. Roughly.

Thumbnails, minus the ending

The page constructions for the first two pages have turned out OK, and I've got them transferred to comic art board. So, I've got most of my planning done and it seems to be working out OK for me so far.

Page constructions for pages 1-2

Now I just need to draw. A lot.