I had a bit of . . .  hesitation heading into the superhero section* of Gina's World.  There are a few reasons:

1 -  I'm breaking out the crowquill for the first time in years and that has the potential for disaster. 
2 - Over the years I've had superhero pages critiqued by so many artists and editors that "it's gotta be perfect!" voice pops up anytime I start drawing spandex. 
3 - I'm always more comfortable working as a story teller in the quiet scenes than the big loud flashy scenes. 
4 - I wanted the art in this section (about 15 pages) to be a bit of an homage to some comics I loved as a kid (I couldn't find a way to pin that down without being a parody or a cheap copy so I pretty much dropped that idea -- the art here is just the way I draw normally with a bit more exaggeration to the figures and longer hatching).

But I'm halfway through pencilling/inking this scene and I'm really enjoying it.  It's slow-going (for the reasons above, largely) but it's also surprisingly fun and satisfying.  I think I have managed to tap into the giddy excitement superheroes gave me as a kid, after all.  My hope is when you pick up the book and read the pages, the fun and excitement bit comes across but the slow-going is nowhere to be seen.  So to the points above:

1- If I screw something up, I can redo it and patch the fix in  in photoshop
2 - Can't please everybody anyway.  The important thing about this scene is does it tell the story well and is it fun to read, not will it impress somebody.
3 - It's important to step out of your comfort zones -- it's the only way to make them bigger.
4 - Sometimes an homage can just be in the initial idea of doing a type of scene.  No need to play it any larger than that.

* Gina's World has got a bit of "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" to it and there's a scene where Gina is a James Bond/Jackie Chan superspy, one where she's a ronin in the Warring States Period of Japan, and this bit where she's a superhero.

This morning I've rewritten/replotted/rescripted the next scene in Gina's World.  Well, I'm not quite done with the exact placement of the page breaks, but the story's redone.  And I like it a lot better.  The action flows together better and there's more room for character interaction.  It does make the page count swell four pages.  Why do even rewrites that tighten up the script up the page count?

But this is what I love about doing Gina's World as a graphic novel rather than the mini-series as I had originally laid it out.  Scenes get to be the length that makes them best, rather than needing to come out to 24 pages.  Yes, there's a pleasant, puzzle solving satisfaction to hitting that 24 page mark with just the right balance, but I'm just loving the freedom here.

Freedom, potential.  Those two words keep popping up of late when I'm talking/thinking/planning art stuff.  I kinda like that.

I've finished the Gina's World scene of Gina and Keira in the mountains.  I'm a bit sad to see it go.  The characters were in lush surroundings, and slowing down to experience the world around them.  And while I was drawing them, I was too.  But it's time to say goodbye to this little slice of Eden and move on to the next adventure.

I haven't been showing the work around, but I have been plugging along with Gina's World.  I just wanted to share the most recent page (page 39 or chapter 2 page 1 depending on how you're counting).


( Big Picture below the cut: )
That last panel fought me like you wouldn't believe.  I completely redrew Gina there I don't know how many times.

The Gina's World page I'm working on has been giving me trouble.  I'm nearing the end on it, and it'll turn out just fine on the printed page, but the journey to get there has been pretty frustrating.

I really like it when my inked pages are perfect.  Scan 'em and you're done.  It's a great feeling of satisfaction.  This page . . . is far from perfect.  It starts with a series of close-ups of hands.  Imagine a demonstration of some slight-of-hand trick, showing how you palm something.  Some complicated stuff has to convey quickly.  But much of the drawing on he page has wandered off target.  By the time it's done, the page will have three or four sections redrawn and photoshopped in to fix the weak drawing, and the final panel sized up to give it some more punch.

When I gave up and went to bed last night, I was feeling pretty morose about the page,  but in the morning light, once the fixes are made, it'll be a good page  (Thank goodness, it's a pivotal moment in the first chapter -- not a good place to have a weak page).  So my guess is I'm going to feel whimsically bumsy for a day or so about not having that perfect on the page moment on this page where I really wanted it, but that'll pass soon.

Okay NOW page 30 of Gina's World is done.  Well, the black and white artwork is done of it, it's not lettered, and the universe hasn't told me yet whether it'll be colored.  It'll look great black and white, but the right colors could look great to.  I'll probably hit up Brian Miller for some coloring advice, about good directions to take it in.   I'll buy him lunch or something so I'm not COMPLETELY leeching off his experience.

Page 31 is sitting on my drafting table, and as you can gather, I am NOT sitting at my drafting table.  I've been completely re-penciling the last few pages, but this one I think I might as well just BURN first.  There's nothing on it that's salvageable.

I haven't scanned page 30 yet, but when I do I think I'll post it so people can see where I finally went ink-wise on this section.

But the scene is kung-fu-fightin' goodness, and I'm having fun.

p.s. VP debate -- as I mentioned to a buddy last night, if we had been doing a debate drinking game, we would have been HAMMERED quite quickly.

p.p.s is there anyone out there who LIKES being called Joe Six-Pack?  I always thought that was an insult, saying the most important thing about you is how much beer you drink.

Well, I've discovered the limits of my paper.

I've been using Eon boards for quite awhile.  These days I'm not doing their pre-printed blueline pages, but just blanks of their stock.  The bluelines used to make me feel all official, and they are actually quite handy for laying out borders, etc. but these days I really like the blank page, and like having the original artwork without the blue, and it works better for washes, etc etc.  Anyway, it's good paper, it's the right size, it's reasonably priced.  eonprod.com if you're interested.

I've never had cause to complain about their boards, and I still haven't, but I finally managed to ruin the surface.  Masking fluid, artists tape, and drafting tape, all working together, managed to peel up the top layer of paper on the latest Gina's World pages.  Which was fixable and all, but I think from here on out for GW I won't be doing spatter effects and that sort of thing on the real board, but adding that stuff digitally.  A more careful hand could probably work within the paper's limitation and do all that stuff, but in this case, I'm not interested in becoming a more careful hand.

Two pages damaged.  Minor bummer, but only minor.  Another minor bummer is the two Gina pages I finished yesterday WEREN'T pages 29 and 30 like I though, but 28 and 29.  I'd lost count, and haven't actually reached the big 3-0 in pages.

The current scene is ten pages of Jackie-Chan-y James-Bond-y goodness.  I'm inking it with a brush about one size bigger than I want, which is giving the linework a bit of a rough feel that I'm digging.  And some ink spatter, obviously.  I thought I'd run through this scene without changing anything, but so far I've re-penciled every page, and am making some changes to the action and staging here and there.  I guess I'm not happy unless I'm fiddling?

Speaking of fiddling, there's a shot where Gina kicks a rifle out of a guard's hands.  I'm working on a couple different versions.  One's a pretty standard comic-book martial arts kick, which looks good on the page.  The other is a Capoeira kick that's all funky and neato, and I dig the uniqueness of it, but it doesn't LOOK as powerful . . .  not sure which one I'll go with.  I'm leaning towards the traditional right now.

I might delay the scene I was so excited to start on Gina's World.  I took a stab at how I was going to handle the lines, and it didn't seem right.

so I took another stab

and another

 and it still hasn't come together.

Here are a few options I've put together (under the cut because it's a pretty big image):

( Click to See! )
I think the pencil one actually has the most potential, but I'm not 100% on that one.  Going to toy some more.  Come Thursday, I may skip this scene entirely and move to the next bit where I actually know what I'm doing.

I've probably mentioned that I like to listen to DVD commentary when I'm drawing.   (Sometimes -- sometimes I like music, sometimes NPR shows, often total silence [or as close as is possible in this house {I may have also mentioned at some point that I also like nested parentheses <I feel they match the way I think and digress> rather to excess}].)

There's good commentary, indifferent commentary, and BAD commentary, of course, but what I find funny is how they're not allowed to mention certain other films or franchises.  Sometimes you get an awkward conversational hiccup when someone almost says the forbidden film and then says "well, on lots of other movies."  I was listening to Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe commentary while working yesterday, and the director and effects guys talking about scenes and choices, and not wanting to do this or that because it had been done before, seemed very careful NOT to mention Lord of the Rings.  Like they'd gotten a note from the producer that they weren't allowed to mention it (even if half the effects team had done Lord of the Rings).  The other one that was funny for me was The Incredibles, where they'd speil off a long phrase about "the types of things you'd find in various adventure spy movies of the 70's and 80's"  when a normal human being would have, at least on the second time the subject came up, said "James Bond and those other spy movies" and from then out "James Bond stuff" rather than dancing around it so thoroughly every bloody time they talked about villains, lairs, design, or gadgets.

Incredibles, I think, may have been more about being dilligently inclusive and not wanting to overlook a whole genre of film by using "Bond" as a generic label, but sometimes it comes off as "don't give anybody ammunition to sue us" or "lets not bring up an unflattering comparison with a superior film."

I stayed up late last night to get back on schedule with my work, so it's back into Gina's World today (hooray!)  Below is the Eden panel I was talking about last week.  This is one of those times when the linework doesn't really come off at screen resolution (a frequent pitfall of strick black and white lineart with generally thin lines).  I think it reads MUCH better in real life.





I should finish pages 1-26 and 1-27 this week.  What's exciting about that is 1-28 is the first page done in one of the fantasy settings where I'll be using a different art style.  ooooh, I'm simultaneously excited and intimidated.

Labor Day I attended a Dead Celebrities themed costume party.  It was a great time.  The weird thing was, quite independantly of each other, a bunch of people came as gilligan's island characters.  Elvis you expect.  Marilyn you expect.  Natalie Wood you didn't expect but in retrospect really should have.  But Gilligan?  There were three gilligans, two skippers, and a Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third.

Speaking of costumes, one of the fun things about Gina's World is that I can set scenes wherever I want.  There's a feudal Japan scene, and a James Bond/Jackie Chan scene, and a post-apocalyptic superhero scene.

I was tooling around with Gina's superhero costume, and things seemed to be going well, when I backed off a bit and realized I had somehow drawn a Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform on her.  Man . . .

Effort and Time does not equal quality.

There's a level at which I have trouble accepting that maxim.  I've got a bit of a basic hard work ethic (even if I frequently don't live up to it).  At a basic level I just think that something's important to you, you work harder at it, put in extra hours, and it's thereby improved.  But that's not always the case.

I've recently taken another look at the concept that in a comic, the art shouldn't get in the way of the story.  One way my art has been getting in the way of my story is that Iv'e been constantly revising and tinkering the art, so the story never gets out there for the world to see.  Having realized that, it's not so much that I've dropped my standards, but I've increased the importance ranking of actually getting things done.

It was hard to let go and do that, but oddly enough, it seems to have improved my art.  I can't quite grasp it all, but those pages that I cherish, the technically impressive, error free masterpieces, don't really impress the people I expect them to.  It's the pages that I kind of groan over, with the wonky forearm or the perspective that doesn't quite gel, that really attract positive attention.  What I don't quite know is whether that's a cause or a side effect.

Does the loosening up not just let some errors through, but just increase the spirit of the page, the zing of the linework, the fun of the layout?  Does it convey the story and my enthusiasm for presenting it so much better than my precise work that that more than makes up for the errors?

Or are the errors themselves the positive change?  Does the page become more appealing and human when things are dropped in -- earnestly, passionately, but then let stand rather than conscientiously refined to what my intellect calls the right standard?



I honestly can't say.  I've been reading Walter Murch's book on film editing "In the Blink of an Eye" and he opens with a quote from Ingmar Bergman talking about Igor Strazinsky, and then elaborates on that himself.  Strazinsky always preached and taught the value of restraint, because as he "bore a volcano within" that restraint was needed to bring out his genius, but many of the people who followed his advice hadn't the volcanic temperment, and restraint was the opposite of what they needed to strive for -- they needed someone urging them to reckless abandon.

I think I see things (or perhaps just see myself) as less of a this person is this way situation -- rather that as one works, and changes emphasis, there are times when you need focused, restrained precision.  Glacial passion, unstoppably carving.  Then there are eras in your work where you need to damn the torpedoes.  But that's not the end of it.  You don't do one, learn that, then drop it and switch to the other, then you're done.  Maybe from your new fiery perspective, you consciously move back to the ice, or maybe you find a new set of options before you and head for those.

Or maybe, like the anecdotal Strazinsky, you find the one word that sums up what you need, and it's your guiding star as you sail through the rest of your life.

But I doubt it.

Even though I've been wrestling about with her design, I find Rann a really fun character to draw.  I think if there were a movie made about her, my 12 year-old-self would have thought her the epitome of awesome.  Tough, serene, martial arts master, athletic, poised, and kicking ass at the drop of a hat.  Whoof.  Actually my current-self finds her pretty awesome, too.

I'm taking a moment to slightly retool a bit of that fight page I posted the rough for (1-20).  I'm adding a figure to panel three, and changing some angles on the background buildings (which weren't even in the version I posted anyway). 

One of the things I find tough balancing is background detail in a fight scene.  You need to know where you are, you want the b/g's to gel with the b/g's on the quiet scenes, but you don't want the detail slowing down the pace or sucking the dynamics down.

Especially since I'm a fan of big brawl fight scenes (my martial arts background and lifelong love of kung-fu movies showing through here) I like to have enough background reference points that you can get a feel for the shape of the battle as the camera pans, or the main combatant turns inside the mass of attackers.  Yeah, sometimes total chaos is great, but sometimes not -- a fight scene you understand I think is a much better way to show off a skilled fighter.  Side-note:  I think the Dark Knight was hurt by the tight frame quick-cut fight scenes -- lots of energy, and a good feel for batman's power, but no sense of any control, skill, or intelligence out of him.  I'm told the fight scenes were actually very well choreographed, but the camerawork and editing pretty much erased that.

Plus, I think I'm finally getting over my hesitation about dutch angles.  Yeah, they're over-used.  But that doesn't mean I have to swear off them altogether.

--

Entry Glossary:
b/g - background
dutch angle - film term for when a camera is rotated on it's z axis so the horizon isn't level in the screen/panel anymore.  You know, like in the Adam West Batman where they tilt the camera all the time.  I hear Battlefield Earth was all dutch angles all the time, too, so you start to get an understanding of my wariness.  On the other hand, wikipedia says The Third Man used it a lot, and the Third Man is just awesome, though I haven't seen it in years.'

Glossary Bonus:
Fun one-page article complaining about the abuse of the dutch angle

In Gina's World I'm using about every production method I know.  Sometimes I'm penciling right on the bristol, sometimes I'm lightboxing old pencils and inking from that.  Page 1-20 (that's chapter 1 page 20 -- GW is organized into 4 chapters, each about 36 pages) is a total do-over.  The first and the last panel have a lot in common with the old one, but the rest is completely new.

So I'm treating this like a new page, I did some thumbnails, then last night during my daughter's gymnastics class, I started the rough for the page.  I'm about halfway done:
This is the first appearance of Rann, who's kind of Ben Kenobi to Gina's Luke Skywalker.  I toyed with the idea of expanding the fight scene to 3 pages to add a little more oomph and zing to the opening chapter, but decided against it.  In panel 2 I exaggerated the length of the kicking leg, trying to underscore the power of the blow.  I may need to dial that back a bit, though.

EDIT --ooh, actually this ISN'T the first appearance of Rann (that's page 2), this is just where she and Gina meet.

I'm working on Gina's World.  I know I've said that many, many times over the past decade, but it's always been true.  And yeah, Gina's World isn't the ONLY thing I'm working on (illustrating a sports book and a cookbook, commissions, caricature work, and soon doing layouts/thumbnails for an action comic), but it's an important thing I'm working on.

One of the primary complications of  working on a big project early on in your career is that quite frankly your skill level changes.  I started work on Gina's World before I drew "The Forgotten"  (in fact "The Forgotten" was the first of many, many projects to interrupt work on Gina's World).  And my art in the Forgotten is, well, not up to the caliber I'm producing these days.  And neither is the work I was doing on Gina's World at the time.

I knew this would be the case, so I tried to work in stages to get as much consistency as possible.  I scripted it all, then thumbnailed all 120-plus pages, then roughed all 120-plus pages, then penciled 110 or so of those.  Towards the end I inked and lettered six or seven pages to have some finished work to show around, and then I threw those finished pages away because I rewrote the opening, etc.  I added some scenes, cut some scenes, shifted some stuff (author/screenwriter/teacher Allan Woodman was a huge help in getting me to see how the overall structure of the story was working) you get the idea. 

While penciling I'd decide I didn't draw hips well enough so I'd take two months off to do pages and pages of figure drawing studies around the hips, then come back and redo a bunch of pages with the newfound skills.  Then I'd decide my backgrounds weren't convincing, so I'd go do a thousand drawings of buildings, cities, trees, etc., come back and redo a bunch of stuff.  It certainly slowed me down.  And add to that stopping work on Gina's World to do projects like The Forgotten, or Soul (which may yet see the light of day) or my ill-fated historical graphic novel project, and suddenly the ten year timeframe makes a fair bit of sense.

But now I'm just working pretty straightforward.  Pencil and ink page 1, pencil and ink page 2, etc.  Some of the old penciled pages I just throw away and start from scratch, some I lightbox onto a new sheet  to retool things, some I just go in with the eraser and take out all the errors and re-pencil them.  It depends on the page.  But 1-12 are penciled inked and lettered, 13-19 are inked.  I was starting to skip around here and there again, but I've stopped myself.

Here's page 18, finished today:

It's one of the pages I completely redid, though I used the original as a reference -- here's the old page 18:


I felt we needed a wider view of the simulated city -- that the narrow one was too close to the size of the universal studios lot or something.  I wanted it to be clear this was a whole city, but nice and disorienting, so I stuck with the 6-point perspective.