Sunday 8 March 2009

Gawain comic, pages 16-18

Next week, I will be drawing the last of this prologue. I know how Chapter 1 is going to start, but not quite what else is going to be in it apart from that beginning :-). I have do do some thorough thinking to figure out all the bits I need to tell before Gawain can have his first famous adventure. As you can guess from that, I don't intend to detail his entire childhood. I just want an introductory part that mentions the important, formative events of the time before he arrived at King Arthur's court - the kind of information a reader needs to understand his actions and reactions. It also has to launch the main themes. So it's important to do it right. It's also the part most likely to receive content edits as I go along.

Anyway: three more pages of the prologue.


CLICK THE IMAGES FOR A READABLE VIEW.



4 comments:

Cecilia said...

I wasn't aware I was reading only the prologue! I am so inattentive sometimes...
Anyway, Morgana is becoming positively interesting, and I like the way she bends in page 17. I also wish to learn more about her sisters ^^
Sometime ago you told me you took the storyboard form from me, and I forgot to reply you that I'm quite flattered for that. I still believe in the comfort of that form. Yes, there is a spontaneousness that tends to evaporate when you do the final version, but this is a thing that happens also in the relation between a sketch and the final version of an illustration :-P I have frequently the tendency of preferring my sketches to the coloured, completed versions.

ampersand said...

I have that feeling too, though it's complex. Usually I do like how the final version of a picture ends up, but the sketch always has a kind of charm that I can never reproduce.

I don't know why I didn't start storyboarding like this earlier. The one you showed me consisted of talking heads - but I thought: even if it's "only" talking heads, at least you have all the dialogue, the backbone of the story, written out. I never had anything. It was as if I had never plotted anything beyond a few pages that led nowhere. So, I am really very grateful to you for showing me the way to set a story down quickly.

I think the storyboard makes all the weaknesses of my drawing skills very clear :/. But at least the story gets written, and you get an idea of how I envision it. I had to overcome a few of my fears here, but I'm happy that I did :D. This just works for me. I can't write a decent script without pictures. The sketches help me write. Even if I should never find the time to draw the final version, the whole story will be there. If something goes wrong, I can edit. And if at a later stage I don't like a part anymore, I don't have to abandon the whole - I can just redo a part. All thanks to you! :D So often all it takes to get me out of a crisis is someone to show me the way...
*huggles*

Cecilia said...

Ehh! You make me blush! Really, I'm happy of having showed you an useful technique. The storyboard form came to me quite naturally, as I'm sometimes too lazy to draw properly, and the sketches allowed me, as you say, to write down all the dialogue with a hint of the expressions and poses of the characters. When I was drawing Asanor I had a notebook where I wrote ideas and sometimes put down dialogues (without drawings) for future scenes. All the rest, except some pages whose composition I tried before, was done directly while drawing the pages.
My own storyboards usually don't present panels, so that they must be revised and adapted to be transformed into a readable comic.
At the moment, I have added a few pages to my Ricardian story, and I'm quite happy because my old illustration teacher (the one who taught me the watercolour's drop technique) had a look at it and liked it! It's hard to meet his favour, so I'm really pleased. In fact, he said it's almost ready for publication. I wonder which Italian publishing house could be interested in a bio-comic of Richard III, however... :P

ampersand said...

But... but... they shouldn't be prejudiced! Besides, it's not as if Richard III was a boring king :). Also, people publish manga versions of Shakespeare's Macbeth (to name just one that I came across myself), so I see no reason why your comic shouldn't be publishable. I'd buy it :D!