Sunday, August 23, 2009

Busy Busy Busy!

I didn't want to leave the blog dry since I'm drawing and painting furiously to get this done, so here is a small peek into where we are and what the story is like. It's been too long since the last post, but for me, that is a good thing because I have been cranking away on this graphic novel project, finishing tonals and laying out the finished dialog all the way up to page 55 (image shown is page 50). One and a half more chapters to complete dialog and then I move onto the final art. I have deliberately taken this course to allow the author and myself a chance to actually read our book with judgeable art in place. Even though this art is supremely rough it is fairly close in mood to what the final panels will feel like. This has given us a chance to make sure the story is flowing and we are able to follow it. This flexibility has allowed us to make all kinds of edits as I layout the dialog and even change character staging as needed to get the best performance from the dialog alone. The rest will have to come from the final art. And that is going to be the most fun! Being that this is our first graphic novel, it has been an enjoyable pleasure amid the pitfalls, to learn just how hard it is to make one. There is so much to consider, it can seem overwhelming. I feel like I have learned so much already since that first thumbnail I drew on the printed script, I know that I will approach the second and third volume entirely armed with new knowledge and approaches that I think will work even better.