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

praise

[anna mette bladt (from livejournal.com)]

It is so great! At last your teacher gives you some of the praise, you deserve, and are willing to work with you on your comic. I think you are ridiculous talented, and you are making a wonderful work. Your storytelling is very good, and so are your characterizations. I know nothing about the art of drawing, so I'm afraid I can't say anything helpful about it. But I like your drawings very much, you can always make me feel the mood of the situation. And so many of your pictures I remember clearly - The page, Klingsor visits Ygraine, angry Gawain fighting with his brother, Morholt in the dungeon, Pellinor on the hilltop.

How DARE that teacher, Stijn, make fun of your work! You just say the word, and Morholt and I will come and beat him up! :-)

Great page today - I had been wondering, if Arthurs men really would have let him be killed. And off course an old fox like Pellinor would never ride out alone to challenge a band of warriors without any kind of backup.
But he still showed both courage and trust by meeting Arthur alone.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

That is very generous of you and Morholt, coming to rescue my reputation like that! But I'm afraid Other Stijn does have a point; I didn't 'feel' the pencilled version like I do my notebook sketches. Mind you, it's still not going to be easy for me to accept that less fortunate choices and things like my crooked lines that separate panels are going to be 'it'. But if I started to create and post the pages such as they are, it is because I knew in my heart that my perfectionism is too stifling. But I still told myself I could mess up because there would be a 'corrected' version one day...

It makes me really glad to hear that there are scenes that stay with you that way :). There are many people out there who draw a great deal better than I do, but I always hope that my pictures are effective. And characterisation is really what drives me to tell this story: my love for my characters is what inspires me. So, thank you very much for reassuring me!