Chapter 3: It Festers (Page 3)

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I went a different route with this page. I chose to do the pencils and line art traditionally and then colour and letter digitally. The only lineart I did digitally was the husk.

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I've come to accept that I enjoy drawing a whole lot more when it's traditional. Digital could never get past the feeling of being artificial to me. The colours are fine but the lineart seemed like processed cheese - the strokes were too perfect because I would Stroke & Control-Z; Stroke & Control-Z; Stroke & Control-Z until I got the perfect line. Inking traditionally seems more warm and real - if you mess up the stroke, that's your ass. You'll have to fix it in post.

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Drawing traditionally also goes faster, for me, which reduces the frustration for me. I imagine it's because digitally I zoom in a lot which means I have to cover a bigger surface area when I work whereas traditionally the stroke is one short shot. I also save time because there is no Stroke & Control-Z.

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The process that I follow is to draw each image in each panel separately on the page. I then scan the pages and put the compilation digitally, morphing and cropping where necessary. It helps me to feel free when I draw. When I drew the panels and then drew the image confined by the panels, it was frustrating and I felt a mild and highly diluted sense of claustrophobia whereas this approach leaves me feels free to get stupid and cut loose.

 

Another wisdom that I adhered to was that comics are about exaggeration.  Panel 2 is a perfect example of that. I overemphasised his action and made him look ridiculous and I loved it. It gives more sense of motion and more life to the image, which is important for action sequences because the nature of comics is such that you're dealing with static images. That's what I love about drawing: The challenge of pulling off an illusion. The illusion of depth; the illusion of movement; the illusion of activity.

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Such a privilege to be able to do this.