Monday, September 3, 2007

Comic with title, text

Here is the comic, pretty much done, in black and white. For class this week we had to imagine ourselves as cavemen discovering chipped stone tools. We had to make a stone cutting device (sharp rock) with our hands and document the process. This comic is my documentation. I went to Rocky Hill to get the rock that I chipped away at...notice mention of this in the comic! Any suggestions on the drawing or written part are welcomed. I'm going to try and color it now...if I fail I'll just bring this version.

2 comments:

David said...

Okay -- here's my ultra-harsh (you asked for it!!) panel-by-panel critique:

Panel 1
A nice composition that puts the center of visual interest in a little island. I see that you're lightening up on the line work as you move into the distance, but the level of detail doesn't diminish appropriately. More detail in the foreground or less in the background. Desaturating the colors into the distance will also help this "atmospheric perspective" effect. There is no easy visual "entry" into the center stage--the character speaking is trapped by lines. With color you could make one edge of their seating area transition smoothly. Also, I really want to see the face of the dude talking about Heath, because it would give me some context about his tribal situation. Is he old and grizzled? How old? How grizzled? Also, that little grass/rock intersection in the bottom left is very high-contrast and distracting. What is the weird crop-circle logo that occurs in this pane and the last one? Is that your secret insignia? In any case, I think it's flattening the scene in the first panel.

Panel 2
Nice vignette effect, but I do not think that you are using the vertical inset shape effectively. The current composition has a lot of meaningless space above Heath. This is a difficult angle to draw, though; kudos for being adventurous. The hand holding the stick/stone does not look active enough...looks too doll-like. Try tightly gripping something with your left hand and draw with the "knuckliness" in mind.

Panel 3(the whole second row)
Craggy vistas and a hometown nod? I like your fried egg flowers. What's the source of this trapezoid theme? In the center image, did you try putting the horizon lower? I think that would help the sense that he's looking off of a bluff into unfolding canyons. The bottom of the walking stick in the center image looks like it's coming to a point at the image frame, and it's flattening the space. Easy fix. Nice framing of Heath's head in the right image. I think he could be really small to convey the other cavemen's first glimpse of his return. Ya know, coming 'round the mountain, silhouetted with an armful of something (not yet recognizeable?).

Panels 4 and 5
Easily the best figure drawing in panel four...clean up the ambiguity of the front foot though. The hand in the vignette is great! Nice thumb. You could make radiating lines to help describe the throbbing. The scene of him impressing the lady could be zoomed in, over her shoulder shooting slightly up. And his hand doesn't quite align with his face in the final panel...it looks like his hand is overpronated. Did you try taking a digital photograph of your own hand?

Overall, awesome and inspirational! I'm eager to see it colored.

Dimitri said...

Thanks! After three days of staring at something blindness starts setting in and stuff looks right because simply because its there...anyways--

What I tried to do in the drawing was to prepare clean images for color. Having never colored before, this was a risk. I relied on color in many places for composition and readability, so things like foreground-indicating details were forgotten. Mistake! A little more time spent making each frame a bit more sound in black and white would have been worth it.
The trapezoid thing was just a device to imply setting change and time elapse. LOVE the comin' 'round the mountain idea!
The hand shot lost out on coloring, which sucks because I wanted to make the palm red. I spent an afternoon copying Milt Kahl hands this summer which helped my hand drawing considerably. The love scene is too neutral, I like your shot suggestion...unfortunately I wont be able to make many changes, boo.

ok! thanks again, color post now....