Growing Branch

Excuse me as I pick the tar out from between my toes (see the end of the last post). Obviously out later than planned though hopefully better for the extra spit and polish here’s page 21!

There a few things of note here, mostly in relation to the change of scene as we return to the spaceport lobby. For one it should be evident to anyone who flicks back to page 11 or earlier how much the rendering of the art has changed; linework and colours are far cleaner and less murky creating what I hope are clearer, stronger images. It’s annoying that the stylistic continuity has taken a hit in the process but it’s better that the larger changes are made now than later, in an ideal world I’d redraw the backlog but time isn’t on my side so for the immediate present I shall be pressing on…

The colours themselves aren’t as striking as with the previous scenes, moving back to a less restricted more subtle palette of oranges and browns off blues and greys. Besides the practical change of location and consequent lighting I felt that it was time to turn down the intensity for a little while and wind up the tension again for the next major beat of the story – in relation to this, I’d like to draw attention  to the use of repetition on this page.

Pauses and reoccurring elements if used heavy handedly are liable to simply create tedium, but they can also help garner a sense of unease between events, creating a rising rhythm and suggestion that we are waiting for something to happen. Emphasising an awkward pause in a comic is an odd affair as sense of time is often determined by reading speed; a dramatic moment the author intends to be held may well be skipped over in an instant by an impatient reader given that they are ‘in control of the acquisition’ (Eisner, 1996, page 52).

What I’ve done here in effort to create the impression of an uncomfortable pause is use three panels that are almost the same but with varying details; I didn’t want to just repeat the same image three times with gratuitous copy and paste – it tends to derail my immersion in a comic when I see recycled art – so I reused the composition for each but gave the characters slightly different expressions and poses, thus holding the moment while hopefully avoiding tedium or literally appearing to stop the comic.

An additional area of pseudo repetition I’d like to point out is the first panel; an entirely new drawing but with composition which echoes a panel from page 11 (looking past the security guard over the desk) and to a degree the first panel from the previous page. Whether these touches register with reader subconsciously or knowingly it should in theory dial things back a few notches while maintaining the feeling of impending danger I’ve been developing along the way.

One last minor mention I should make is that I changed the colour of Scratch’s trench coat now that it’s in neutral (i.e. not green) lighting. In early concept art it was greenish-grey but it struck me that brown-beige was a better fit for both the character and comic’s colour schemes, it also pushes it closer to the kind of 1940’s trench coats I based it’s look off in the first place.

That’s all for now folks!

Since I already covered my recent production troubles and new course of action last post, I’ll keep this nice and simple by weighing up the finished page on its own merits/problems so I can get on with things and try to make up for my poor output.

The third panel is pretty much the most notable feature of this page, working as a background and being a more ambitious effort than my usual. Besides wanting to break up the monotony of flat closeups, as I’m bringing this scene to a close I thought a longshot would make a striking conclusion displaying full figures and emphasising the bizarre meeting location. I also thought that the raised angle looking down would make for a nice echo of the first panel in the toilets from page 12, while giving the atmosphere a warped edge in the buildup to the next major beat in the story.

On the downside even with a photographic reference and preliminary sketch to work from it was a small nightmare to draw,  forming a large bulk of the delay. It’s close but I’m not sure it quite pulls it off, the perspective on Curt feels on the money but I’m not so sure about Scratch. The fact it looks a bit fisheyed isn’t all bad given the intended tone but I definitely have a long way to go drawing this sort of viewpoint.

My favourite panels are the first and second, an odd thing given how bad they looked in the sketch but somehow they worked out as more than the sum of their parts. Scratch’s ‘don’t give a damn’ expression feels spot on and I was especially pleased with the way the light catches the edge of Curt’s face in the first image. The third and last panels meanwhile feel functional at least but at the same time didn’t quite capture what I wanted; Curt’s expression seems too understated while conversely Scratch’s brooding irritation is a little too overt maybe.

The colours are a continuation of the last two pages so there shouldn’t be any surprises there, however they emphasise my biggest issue with the overall page: wasted space. The top row is fine in this regard but the bottom panels have some embarrassingly barren spots I really should have filled. I coasted on abstraction for the last image but the left corner could have done with some extra clutter or a shift in focus maybe.

One final point; I deviated from my script’s dialogue someway here as it seemed a heavy-handed on review. Scratch said a lot more than she needed to at this stage while Curt’s behaviour seemed unrealistically bold under the circumstances, questioning her ‘name’ and getting a snarky response. It was kind of interesting in some respects but felt forced and unnecessary – a case of what’s left unsaid being more effective I suppose.

The bottom line? An adequate page but still a disappointing one, not so much because of the end result as the time invested. One way or another I must get faster at how I go about this. Hopefully my new approach between traditional and digital mediums will improve matters, I just hope the quality doesn’t suffer as a result.