Layouts have been a breeze ever since I finished storyboarding! For some pages, I had a pretty good idea of what kind of layout I wanted, but I'm trying to make the others the best they can be. Also, doing them all at once will make them more consistent. Right now I'm in a rush to get things ready for a film shoot that I'm an art assistant for (random, yes! but awesome!). I'll be helping create the sets for the film and changing sets from scene to scene. In the downtime between changes, I hope to get more layout work on AER HEAD done - we'll see how that goes!
Layouts
I've finally moved beyond the storyboarding part of the comic this past week! I filled in all the gaps of the first episode and made sure everything flowed well and made sense. Onto the next stage: page layouts!
A layout is a general page composition. I use circles and boxes to fill where characters and speech bubbles should be. Layouts are important before doing detailed drawings so I don't have to erase them later if the composition isn't working. Sometimes if I have a really clear layout, I get carried away at this stage and start to draw details, like below:
This is Pipsy remembering Aeryan growing up. And yeah I can't deny that that page looks like anime :P
Sometimes I daydream about how great it will be when my AER HEAD graphic novel will be complete, but then I remember that the fun is in the journey and process of making the comic. I'll continue to work at a steady pace, but I don't want to rush AER HEAD because I keep thinking of more cool ideas to help its story grow. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Storyboarding Storm
NYC has gotten hit with a couple bad winter storms lately. One day, the heat in my apartment decided to take a vacation and left my roomies and I in the cold! Hence the gloves (I love the finger/mitten ones! You can actually grab things with them!) I wished the sunny beach scene I was coloring could radiate heat. I usually sketch in pencil but if there's a particular scene I need to test out I'll use color.
I've been storyboarding the rest of what will happen in the first episode of AER HEAD. I took all the pages off the wall that would be in the first segment and spread them on my table so I could better see what I needed in between. I counted 30 pages on the table, and I'm not even done with the whole thing, so it may be 2 comics instead of one, but I'll worry about that later. The important thing is that I get all the important elements down and edit out over-explanatory details.
Oh and the heat was fixed by this picture. I was just wearing the hat due to a bad hair day. People suggest putting photos and videos of themselves on their blogs, but for me that requires looking presentable, which isn't how I usually look when I'm just in my apartment drawing. Who really gets all dolled up just to sit at their desk and do artwork? You're getting the real story here, people ;)
I've also made a tentative time line of when to finish storyboarding this segment and move on to comic page layouts.
Until next week!
Page 3, now with more panels!
It's part of your balanced breakfast! So pages 1 and 2 are "splash pages," where most of the page is taken up by a single image. Page 3's layout begins my more regular use of comic panels to tell a story. Although they aren't the typical square panels you see in other comics - I love to play with compositions of all kinds.
And I'm not a morning person, but at least my alarm clock (phone) doesn't usually try to attack me. Usually. OH although sometimes in bed in the morning my arm ends up over my head somehow and it goes numb and I wake up to something hitting my face: "OW! What's that? It's AN ARM! AHH! It's MY ARM!" (end pointless drama).
In other exciting news, I'm in an art show THIS SATURDAY 11/13/10! The show is called “How Great Thou Art” and will feature live performances as well as other fine artists like myself. I'll exhibit the first 3 AER HEAD pages and a special AER HEAD illustration. If you're in the NYC area, please stop by! It's from 6pm to 9pm at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral School House, on 32 Prince Street (Between Mott & Mulberry Streets). Here's the facebook event. I'm super excited - I haven't been in a show in quite some time!