Gawain Project: Brothers & Sisters, p. 172

[sigune]

So! Last Tuesday I had my illustration class "exam". I had to bring all my assignments, display them on a table, and then my teacher (Stijn) and his colleague (Other Stijn) had a look at them and gave comments. My teacher didn't say much as he'd already given me his comments on each assignment previously, but he listened to what Other Stijn had to say. And that had a bit of impact on the fate of this comic :p.

Other Stijn looked at my things and basically said, "yes, okay, nice, if a bit classic." When he arrived at my pencilled first comics page (this one), he couldn't place it, as clearly it wasn't an assignment, so I told him about my comic. He didn't like the page much and made fun of it, saying it looked like a Christmas card. So I told him about my difficulties in finding a style I like for the final look, and I showed him my current comics notebook with the brown and sanguine inked sketches. And at that he was all, "I LIKE IT!!11! Why don't you do the whole thing like this? Keep the size! Keep the colours! Do the sketchy thing! You could have it published on yellowish paper just like this notebook! You should totally keep the notebook look!"

And my teacher looked at me a bit cross because I hadn't shown him this particular notebook (I'd shown him the first TDA booklet because that is where the story starts - but you may remember that the quality of those pages was quite a bit lower than what I have been producing recently), and now he thinks I should completely go for the comic next year and produce him a definitive page a week, just like I produce a page a week on this blog.

So um, I guess that is the pencilled style out of the window (I am ... not too sad about that), and the prospect of one old and one new page each week, next year. I am not sure yet how Stijn is going to supervise and correct the new pages if I am going to do them the sketchy way, because I don't really see how this way of working leaves room for correction (the reason why it moves so quickly is because all the mistakes stay where they are and I barely use any reference). Maybe he'll have me redraw stuff and do cut and paste? I don't know.

Thoughts? Opinions? Please share!

Meanwhile: new page.

***

Arthur has pulled the sword from the stone. Having, in one swoop, freed several British slaves as well as the Irish warrior Morholt, Arthur and his men now try to make it home before they get caught by a Saxon patrol. But they haven't got far when they run into King Pellinore of the Jutes, who challenges Arthur to a fight, gives him a good beating, and then wants to be friends. Yep.




Concrit is still and always welcome :).

New page next Sunday!

THE STORY SO FAR:

Part I: The Darkest Hour
1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 19-21, 22-24, 25-27, 28-31, 32-35, 36-40, 41-44, 45-47, 48-50, 51-53, 54-57, 58-60, 61-64, 65-66, 67-69, 70-73, 74-75, 76-81, 82-84, 85-87, 88-90, 91-92, 93-97, 98-101, 102-103, 104-108, 109-111, 112-114, 115-119

Interlude: The Sword of Kings
1-4, 5-11


Part II: Sunrise
Brothers and Sisters
1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 19-21, 22-24, 25-27, 28-30,31-33, 34-36, 37-39, 40-42, 43-45, 46-48, 49-51, 52-54, 55-57, 58-60, 61-63, 64-66, 67-69, 70-72, 73-75, 76-78, 79-81, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171.

Comments

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I have always really liked your art style as it is posted here.

I don't know if this is how everyone does it, but my ex did a comic in ink wash. When she messed up or changed her mind about a panel, she would just copy the size of the panel on another clean page and redo it, then stitch it together on the computer after everything was scanned. It means the originals aren't necessarily pristine, but so what? That's physical media for you.

[sigune]

I think most artists work like that. I have always had a mild obsession with pristine originals - which is probably one of the reasons why I have been so painfully slow over anything supposedly 'definitive'. It's a bit silly. I'll just have to overcome my fears... :p

I went back to my earliest pages because I wasn't sure whether I started posting in 2008 or 2009, and I noticed that as early as that, people have been telling me that to them, the pages looked quite all right like this. But I could never have drawn them like this if *I* had thought they might be definitive. I've had to learn to like them. Just he thought that the lines between the panels aren't straight - goodness no, I could not have set out to keep these as as 'the' pages XD. I've had to recognise that I enjoy drawing these more because I don't feel that pressure to draw perfectly.

I still don't know what it's going to be like when I redraw old pages... But I'm looking forward to it.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I so hear you. Giving yourself permission to just screw around and not make something "finished" can be incredibly useful.

One of the best things I've ever learned is that perfect is the enemy of done. At some point, you have to let go and put your imperfect thing out in the world, that's just how it is.

If the panel border thing is really an issue, you could always pencil them in and then do them on the computer after. Again, that's how my ex did it - she often worked a little over her lines, and then cleaned up the gutters and did the borders on the scanned artwork. I feel weird offering you advice from her work, but I don't actually draw comics myself, and we talked about her process a lot while she was working on it.