I’m up to 6 pages of the final product pencilled, three of them inked, and I have to say that not only is it getting easier to do but I’m starting to get more confident. Pencils I use non-repro blue, and I’m almost out of the mechanical pencil led (woo, shopping!). Inks I’m using a hodge-podge, and I’m going to keep going until I can find a scanner and print/shrink down some of the product to see how thick or thin a line I can get away with and have look good. Yeah, I’m blogging without product… but the anticipation!
That’s one thing that’s a challenge: I’ve scanned stuff at a print shop (which I will not name) and been disappointed by the service. I’m a low-tech kinda guy for someone with a blog, but I have to learn about printing and other computer-related stuff if I’m going to be serious about all of this. When I trusted a previous project to some guy behind a counter, he scanned it all in upside-down, in an adobe file (so I couldn’t put it online without massive hassle for me) and I couldn’t even open it on my laptop without turning it upside down every single page. The print outs were even done two copies, but one copy was on the back of another *and upside down*!!! So I had glossy pages with the other page on the back showing through. Awful.
Art-wise, I got a picture of how thin lines I’d done wouldn’t show through, or would vanish when shrunk down. This means I have to use a thicker line when drawing, or spend some time thickening lines on a computer somehow. Thicker lines when drawing, however, mean less fine detail, which I enjoy doing. Maybe I need to suck it up, but I like pens/markers better than the brushes I’ve been using. I have a lot of respect for artists who can do really fine detail with a brush, and I’ll have to work up to being one of them, I guess!
Another thing I’m working on now is perspective. Never bothered before, but I’m really loving it now. By the end of the next few issues, I want to be a literal master of perspective. Right now I’m taking a few steps and seeing what I can do, and hopefully managing to put out good material while I’m learning.
City shots are another hurdle I’d like to turn into a stepping stone. Part of it is no experience with inanimate objects in my art (just figures I’d made up, nto even life drawing), but another part is just what the heck would look good in this city shot, building wise. I don’t want to map out Xenith just yet, until I’ve got some landmarks that have come up in the stories I’ve written.
By the time I’m done I’d like this comic to be my audition piece for Thor or Conan, or one of the major comic companies out there that love that Canadian talent (like American, but with that International touch). That said, I’ve been working to get my art to be more like the comics I enjoy reading: solid forms, solid anatomy, perspective, shading and inking lines, and technique in general. No short cuts to be trendy, no talking down to the reader with bad art. Good art only, and fun art. I want to laugh while drawing every panel, or be on the edge of my seat in anticipation. I like getting up in the morning knowing I get to draw today, and I want to make material that people are going to get up and be excited because they’re going to read it.
