Thursday, March 20, 2008

loopy b

doodle-type growths form on most of my sketches, especially if theyve been sitting out for awhile. for whatever reason, theyre making it to the final page lately....which i was kinda uneasy about. this sketch below, the top right panel has some dagger eyes , those fell off, but the other doodles mutated.



ERRRRGGGGH!! keeping that top row of figures to scale and consistent did not come easy. i was trying in the first panel to make sonny older and more haggard, the third panel more sunny an fresh faced (and within that, right side innocent, left side an asshole-ish smirk). drawing the skull and eye sockets helped a lot in panel two, i was strugglin there. the sketches, especially with faces, always loose something in ink.

the colors here are place holders, or have a story type purpose. have been planning on red, not this red, just a red and in these spots. in previous pages/posts, i drew and arranged objects that have established colors. the b*dweiser lamp is red, the pool table is green, all recognizable stuff on the wall is red/white/blue. here, there needed to be a thread to connect the "haw!" in panel 3 to the "crash" in panel 4 to the opening of the door in panel 8 (the sliver of door opening makes an exclaimation point). so, theyre all green now, they dont need to be green, just the same. surprises? sonny was just going to turn around drunk and dizzy like in panel 5, but it turned into him drawin imaginary guns wif his fingers. i dunno, i thought it was funny.



sometimes i miss embarassingly obvious stuff. i figured out what lychees and pomegranates were pretty late. theres a police album cover in here, probably one of my all time favorite images, that ive been staring at since i was three. its red digital type on a black background, and in the pencil stage it was inverted and placed on sonnys tee, so the red was ink and that was it. it turns out to be a picture of the bands 3 faces, drawn kinda like "lite brite". maybe cause id seen it so young, it looked before like an alien digital clock, just neat lookin gibberish.
as much as these pages are attempts at cartoony stuff, i might have missed the boat on the jukebox here too. think it wouldve worked if it was jumpin around and animated? size looks like it would be an issue, earlier it (hopefully)worked with this ringing telephone, and drinks hopping around on a tray too. i dunno.
check out this rad Steven Grant column: http://comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=pd&article=3019
about (among other things) using tools unique to comics.

5 comments:

rico said...

Those things look like lychees! Must be related.

I love the doodle-y cartoon stuff sneaking in!

Shawn Crystal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shawn Crystal said...

MY GOD! B, you are THE consummate cartoonist. Stricly Bizness!
Yeah, those look like lychees.

chris be said...

heh, yeah, im remembering now ishan said they come in a can. thus redacted ;p

arnie said...

you know when i sit here and read what your thoughts on your layouts, it's sounds like you have a lot of stuff movin' up there. one discipline i leaned about keepin it loose, i started drawing in ink. i've gone through enough velum, but i'm still working it out. it kinda' forces you to think, and see your ideas more clearly. but the rewards is you get something more natural.

and thanks for the link to Steven, he was on his game this time.

peace out