And now the pencilled page 5:
When I think about the amount of work that goes into each page, I get a bit scared. There’s the design of the costumes, the characters, the architecture, a huge task which is akin to asking the artist to act as costume designer, set designer, and casting agent on a film rolled into one. Then he or she has to turn director and decide exactly how to organise the panels specified in the script – here Andie’s chosen to make them a little jagged and off-kilter, suggesting Jezal’s drunkeness and the sudden explosion of action, the graphic novel equivalent of wobbly handheld camera work, maybe. Then there’s choosing the exact angle to take on each panel, the positioning of the characters to most effectively communicate the action. And that’s before he or she takes on the responsibility of all the actors and starts getting the expressions right, individuality into the faces, a sense of movement and emotion.
Those among you with some artistic talent are probably breaking it down into steps and thinking how you’d go about it. To me it seems like magic.
Incidentally, the page previous to this is up at www.firstlawcomic.com right now. Tomorrow, we’ll be talking inks…
3 comments so far
I bet the artists think writing is a bit like magic. At least good writing. All good trades are well thought-out in the details. It’s like watching a making-of or listening to a DVD commentary for a beloved movie; you suddenly get an appreciation for how much work it takes to get it right.
In my opinion, both of it (writing and drawing) is a hell of a lot of work. Now your beloved readers got books, and even a graphic novel. From here, its just a very small step into film 🙂
I agree Joe, it is like a magic trick, the drawing thing.
If they keep up the level of detail in the cloth, they are setting themselves up for a huge amount of work in scenes like the Lords Circle meetings.