Week 2: Softly Tenderly in Miniature

This week I took the page thumbnails I drew and made them into a miniature comic book.

I ran over the thumbnail sketches of the pages with a sharpie to define the blacks and clarify the page compositions.  I cut them all out to proportional page size and taped them to other small sheets so that they could be double sided.  Finally, I stapled the whole mess together to create a palm-sized version of the finished story.  Voila - Mini Comic!!!

I created a mini comic for two reasons.   First, the thumbnails had several corrections that needed to happen among the pages.  Several panels needed to be moved from one page to the next.  Secondly, this is very inspiring to me because now here in the palm of my hand is a miniature version of the comic!  (tiny yay!)  This gives me the opportunity as well to look over the pages to see if there are any problems with story flow and scene transition. 

Doing this brought two issues to my attention.  The first is early in the story where a segue indicates a time change.  Seeing it laid out in the miniature format let me consider splitting the page in two and making the segue a page turn.   If the final product were a complete book, this would not have been an option as the story is already at eight pages and the finished page count would need to be a variable of four.  Because the book is going into an anthology, another page is a definite possibility.  So I will be breaking that page up and presenting it to Josh to see what he thinks.  This will also give me a little more space to focus on the scene before the segue and give a stronger emotional impact.

The second issue was on a single page where several panels had been moved and had left a good bit of space.  Upon seeing this in the thumbnail comic, I realized that with the extra space, I could add some thematic elements to the page to heighten the emotional impact of the page.  This may take the form of a background element beyond the panels.  More sketching and revision. 

speaking of...I also began detailed character sketches this week.  I only finished one of the characters so I won’t go into it too much.  I’ll save that for next week after I have more work done.  See you in seven!

Week 1: The Best Laid Plans of Mice and...SPROING!

It is amazing how completely derailed you can be by the structure of your life being disrupted. My plans for weekly posts here on Death By Comics became seriously waylaid this past week when my laptop (my only internet connection) went wonky and died. My logic card and my hard drive are dead. The nice guys at the istore are trying to get the data off of it as I type. Wish me luck. I will try to stick to my original plan for scheduled posting, but I’m making no promises right now. This year is officially being filed under super. crappiest. ever.

My laptop dying has brought ALL plans to a screeching halt. Until I can replace my laptop, I will be posting from the computers at my local library. They offer computer use for one hour at a time. I’m trying to prepare my posts at home so that there is very little I have to do at the library and can simply cut and paste. Hopefully this will work out until I can get a new laptop.

As for my work on Softly Tenderly, things proceed slowly. Part of the monkey wrench of this past week’s mess is that my copy of the script and all of my reference material for Softly Tenderly was on my Laptop. Yeah. I know. There has been lots of screaming and gnashing of teeth. So I’m on hold for that until I hear back from the istore. Wish me more luck. :-O

These first few posts are going to be fudging a bit because I've already been working on things and I'm a bit more ahead than starting from scratch. I'm sure I'll catch up quick though.  My original title for this post was The Revelation of Thumbnails, but that has been usurped by my poor dead laptop.  Anyone who knows anything about comic production is going to be laughing at me after this post, but I have to be honest. 

My first step in the process was to read Josh's script and examine all the major visuals. I made a list of all the characters, places, buildings, objects, literally anything prominent in the story that I would need specific reference for. Then I did an exhaustive Google search to find visuals for said reference. To help me keep it all organized, I saved the files into different folders indicating what element of the story it was. Ten years ago I was clipping lots of images from magazines and making copies from books for my image library. Now it all fits in a convenient folder on my computer...my poor dead computer. 

During this process I also looked closely at the pacing of the story. I examined the dramatic elements and how best to accentuate those moments to heighten the emotions of the story. Josh has been kind enough to give me the creative license to change some of pacing and beats in the story to add effect in different areas. Softly Tenderly began as a seven page story but is ending up with eight pages due to some shifting and additions. This point is also where I drew out my thumbnail sketches.

I drew a proportionate size rectangle that is about one-fifth the size that the finished page will be. Then I reread the page description to get the action in my head once again. I sketched the panels in to the small rectangle and scribbled in a small rough of the planned images. I drew multiples of these rectangles on an 11x17 sheet so I could work on more than one page at a time and make sure that the pacing would flow from page to page. Also as I went, if I had an idea for the finished image, I would scribble notes outside the thumbnail sketch with arrows pointing to the appropriate element that needed changing or accentuating. I made various notes to help remind me of elements that needed to be present as I moved to the next stage of rough drafts. If the page composition wasn't working out, sometimes I would abandon a thumbnail sketch and start from scratch with a new thumbnail.

I never really quite understood doing thumbnail sketches.  My brain got it, but heart was never into it.  I'd tried time and again to make the thumbnails happen, but was never able to do it.  For years, I've made page after page of half finished stories and art. I would get most of the way into a page and run into a problem that would require me to redraw the entire page. It made my art process very frustrating.  With Cast Off and Softly Tenderly, I've dedicated myself to doing all the steps in the process so that I can truly experience creating a comic book. So I pushed and pushed myself and made the thumbnails happen. Finally, I get it.

Thumbnails are for composition. They are tiny little sketches that are in the end...disposable. The goal with the thumbnail is to pre-think the page and resolve composition problems on a smaller scale so that when you arrive to the final 11x17 page you don't have to worry about composition at all. THAT is what thumbnails are for! With the thumbnail and the rough draft, you can eliminate composition issues and pacing problems before they ever become real issues. Sometimes I'm way too hardheaded for my own good. I acknowledged to myself long ago that I was a slow learner, but it still amazes me when something simple like this finally lands home.