In between my classes coming to an end for the semester I have been busy at work pasting up and tracing the pages that Dave mocked up for me last week. The tracings include information that I will likely simplify out or black over in later stages. I like having the options.
For this first page I still need to photograph a faux fender-bender. All the people I know
who would help me with it have been sick with a cold this last week.
Hopefully this weekend I will get that out of the way.
I am really looking forward to the above spread. I think the crazy warped star field and all of the little effects I have planned are going to make for a really special drawing. (BTW, Dave, looking at it now the arm between the legs is too overt, so I am going to just have the arm in front of the legs in the end, but I am still going to change that bag of coins into an apple.)
The star field in the background is also very rich in meaning, for me. One of my favorite painters, and the most feminine photo-realist painter ever, Vija Celmins, is very well know for painting insanely accurate and loved-over star field images.
This is an oil painting:
If you ever get a chance to see one of these in person they are absurdly beautiful, delicate images. There are a ton of subtle coloration changes in each star that you cannot see in reproduction, and the way she exposes and utilizes the tooth of the canvas to create the glitter effect around each star is phenomenal.
Here is a video of Vija at work on a star painting in her studio.
If you are worrying, "I hope you are okay getting yourself into the amount of effort that spread is going to take," no worries. I have done my own Celmins'ish star-field painting. Twice in fact, because I was dumb enough to glue stickers all over the first version. Both were 4 feet wide x 5 feet tall, to give you an idea of the amount of paint that had to be laid down.
I do not know what I was thinking gluing those information graphics all over a painting that took me over a month to finish. When I got done with the sixty-five other paintings in the series (about eight year of work) I had to go back and repaint this entire image! I hadn't seen a Celmins in person for the first one, so at least I got to steal the technique for the second go round.
And, having learned my lesson, I stuck the graphics on a piece of Plexiglas over top of the whole thing this time!
Anyway, not only does this page actually look like an easy task, relative to the paintings at least, it is also highly symbolically loaded for me because of the fact that in my own art practice I associate star-field images with fierce femininity, something I think that two-page spread is thematically all about.
Okay, back to the rest of the pages.
I painted that painting two times, I can handle re-drawing the same freaking panel sixteen times over, right? RIGHT!
All of pages, minus the first one, have been printed out in light grey and are ready for me to start "penciling" on top of.
See you next week.
5 comments:
Excellent. And fast too!
The inside look to the creative process between you and Dave is fantastic.
Thanks to you both.
Fascinating as always. Looking forward to the inked version.
Well, as I said to Carson, it's insane to draw the same panel over and over BUT if you choose to do that, it's going to make for an AMAZING series of original pages. THE funniest sequence in the history of photorealism, I think, is the Baldo Smudge tryptic in Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson's "The Success Story". "I'll get to it as soon as I finish ruling these panel borders". Even Al Williamson "statted" the three static Baldo Smudge figures so, Carson, you are definitely in a league all your own! It's the repeating image that really makes that sequence funny so I decided to really Lean Into It with the bridging sequences.
I was a little optimistic about the two pages I got "done" on Saturday, having spent all of today (so far) tweaking them. I THINK my part is done now.
Carson - Don't forget to put an engagement ring on Jack's left hand anytime we see that hand (and find a NICE ring for the close-ups: nothing, you know, Elizabeth-Taylor sized, but a nice rock). It's the sort of mistake male cartoonists make: do a married woman character and the entire female audience is "Where's her ring?" Particularly in this case because she thinks to herself that she's wearing Tom's mother's ring. Guy readers are, like, whatever. Big difference in the genders.
Dave, I think many guys would glance at the ring finger to ascertain...er...chances. Or bask in envy. Or prepare for a CHALLENGE!
But, I think a bit more than "like, whatever". :)
Bill - "in person", you mean? To me, the ring always meant "verboten". Unless it NOT being "verboten" was her idea. Which, now, I would consider adultery plain and simple.
What I was saying was, in a comic book, I don't think the average guy would notice if a married female character was wearing an engagement ring and wedding band or not. That's what I meant by "whatever".
Ward Greene actually used it as a metaphysical story point in a RIP KIRBY storyline where Desmond gets engaged and there's no ring. The diamond shows up in the subsequent storyline and then again a little further on. I have to admit I had read the entire sequence multiple times and hadn't noticed. He was a VERY artful writer in that way.
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