Between Worlds

It's been a while... I have been sketching a lot and working on the continuation of the comic, but I haven't produced much that is postable. Unless you like to see my scribbles. It does mean that I'll start posting layouts again soon, so there will be some more reading material for you :).

The picture above is my first ever A4-sized colour pencil illustration. Actually it started off as a sketch on a stray sheet of Bristol board, but when I'd done the face I liked it so much that I thought I had better turn it into a complete illustration. Because it wasn't at all planned, I improvised all the way. The main reason why this turned into a mysterious night scene is the falling star on the left. It wasn't a falling star. It was a few random lines to try out the feeling of my colour pencils on the sheet of paper. And I found I couldn't erase it. So I had to incorporate it into the picture somehow. Disenchanting, eh? XD

I really enjoyed working with colour pencils here, and Bristol board is the perfect carrier, as far as I am concerned - though I'll go for a heavier sheet in the future. However, I was also reminded why my original idea of doing the comic in this medium ultimately had to be discarded. It's so terribly time-consuming. I probably spent about ten hours on this, everything taken together. But it looks pretty :-).

I'm thinking now that I did something stupid buying Classicolor pencils. I love my Caran d'Ache and the colours are great - but they are water-soluble. At the time, I thought that was an advantage, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I probably should have bought Pablos rather than Classicolors...

As for Morgana, I'm thinking this more or less settles her look. You have seen her in purplish/grey and black habits, but I have settled for white. I like the idea of Morgana and her nuns as ghostly (white) Wise Women ("witte wieven", "weisse Frauen", "Dames Blanches"). These legendary beings have the same combined association with mischief and wisdom that I'm looking to give to Morgana. In the picture, she's also wearing the Celtic cross I found for her - not your classic Irish cross, but a continental one, because the Irish crosses that we know so well are really too recent (8th century+).

Finally, I had been thinking about how Morgana does her magic. Magic in my story is mostly organic - Morgana, Morgause and Ygraine make things happen just by being somewhere. Ygraine walks across a field and stuff starts to grow. Morgause ditto, and when she touches a wound, it heals. Morgana can kill with a touch. But she's powerful enough to do magic from a distance, as well. I don't want her to use spells, though, but a special gesture would be nice. Now, I was reading Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, in which wizards use the index and middle fingers of their right hands as a kind of conduit for their magical power. This gesture looks like a religious blessing in the West. Well, if that isn't perfect for my Morgana, I don't know what is :-). So here we are. Lots of stuff settled in one picture *g*.

Bad photos of first pencils

The most annoying thing about working with a large format (A3) is that I can't scan my pages at home. The scanner is A4. So you get some bad photos instead. Sorry about that. The light has been bad for the past few days, so that didn't help the quality either. In any case, here is proof of the fact that I'm working on the 11-page episode "The Sword of Kings" to find out whether my new style works - and can be sustained for lots and lots of pages.

Not being able to do my own scanning is very annoying, but on the other hand, I can't remember how I ever managed to draw comics in A4. I have become fully reconciled with A3 - and in fact I sometimes wish my originals could be even larger XD.

(click for full view)

Slightly re-designed Uther, more British and more fifth-century than before :).

The 'Sword of Kings' was based on the sword of the so-called Lord of Oss. That means it is at least 1,000 years old when it comes into Uther's possession. (The original was 200 years old when it was buried with the Lord of Oss, so why not?)

(click for full view)

Look, it's the Giant Herdsman! I love to draw him. The perspective and the beasties were a challenge, though.

Next stage: transfer le tout to watercolour paper, then ink, then paint. Finally: add speech bubbles and text in Illustrator. Clearly, we're not done yet. I'm going to do all the pencils first, though. I like the idea of letting the pencilled pages lie around for a while, to leave room for possible corrections. I rarely spot my mistakes at first sight, so a little distance can't be bad.

YES!!

We're getting there! As usual, things take time to fall into place, but I have reached the point where I know I am on the right track :).

Two things: I have sorted out my hero's character design, and I have sorted out the style I want for my story. The picture below demonstrates both. Okay, it also demonstrates my trademark wonky perspective, but guess what: I'm fine with it.

So here is young Gawain, sporting a very Irish costume consisting of leine (tunic), ionar (vest) with belt, and brog (shoes). He has a round Irish shield with his traditional five-pointed star emblem and a long sword with a simple design. The ionar counts as protective gear - it is made of leather and quite strong, but much lighter than chainmail.

The picture was painted on hot-pressed Arches paper. I like this paper because it's so very smooth, but at the same time it is more difficult to work with than rougher paper types. especially for washes. So although I'm happy with how this turned out, I will probably be using cold-pressed paper for the comic because it's just a little bit less tricky.

I guess I will be inking after all. This was inked with dark brown Faber-Castell PITT pens - one Small, one Brush - and I like these so much that I can just envision doing the whole comic with them. Despite the fact that they run out of ink disgustingly soon and are not cheap at all around here (as opposed to in the States! which is so unfair!). But I'm very happy with the lines they get me. This combination of clean line art and watercolour turns out to be the thing I have been looking for all this time. Even if it's time-consuming, I'm going to have to go with it. This is my pet project; I haven't got a publishing deal or deadlines, so I'm thinking I'm free to make the comic I want :)...

Heh. You know, this picture really makes me feel good!

Florie

Sometimes I think that watercolours and I can be great friends. Like now. I'm beginning to know what I am doing with these paints, and I am surprised at the amount of control I turned out to have this time round. I think I'm also getting better at distinguishing between the colours things have and the colours they need to have in order to look good. So this painting of Florie has been great fun for me and I'm happy with the result. The lesson to learn (as if I didn't know it already) is that I should just paint as often as possible. All in all, I have painted 11 pictures this week, and I notice the effects. The happy result is that I am getting less scared of doing the comic in watercolour. I'm not looking for "great art" - just something that looks adequate and pretty and less likeliness for me to ruin a page of line art. 

So let's see what I can do in the new year :).

Shine a Light in the New Year

Inks and paints...

Cecilia is on a campaign to try and make me change my plan of not inking the comic and painting the pencils instead. She is quite insistent on the matter. What to do? An "artist" (I don't like applying this term to myself, but I haven't so far discovered an adequate English translation for "tekenaar", which I do feel I can call myself, despite not being a professional) like me, whose skills are rather limited, has to make the most of the things s/he is good at. So what am I good at? The first thing that springs to mind is "lines" and "inking". It's certainly not colour. Then why on earth would I cut out the inking? Well, for one thing, it takes ages - I ink very, very slowly. For another, I feel like my pencil originals are more lively than my inked versions. I tried to remedy that by using brush pens instead of my faithful Staedtler pens. But with brush pens, you can't draw the tiny details and microscopically smooth lines that I am so anal about. (Yes, I know, why fuss about that when there are still basics that I don't get right? Well, that's me for you.) So inking with brush pens would mean a) adapting my style and b) overcoming my fears. A third reason why I am inclined to dispense with inks is because I feel that stark black lines don't suit my story. I want something softer and more dreamy.

Now - I have recently done a picture for my sister, inked with two Faber-Castell PITT pens, one brush and one Small. It reminded me how much fun these pens are (even if they tend to lose their shape pretty quickly :/). It also reminded me that these exist in a wide variety of colours, so that I wouldn't have to use black. So this week I popped into one of the two art shops in my street and bought a handful of PITT pens in a variety of colours - Caput Mortuum, Warm Grey, Indian Red and Raw Umber. At first, I was a tad nervous about the fact that these colours only exist in brush pens, meaning that I haven't got a Small pen for details or corrections... But then I thought, what the heck, I'll just have to learn and adapt my inking to the brush like a big girl. Above is my first all-brush inked image, done with the Raw Umber pen.

The lady in the picture, as you can tell by the caption, is Florie. She is Gawain's second wife and the daughter of the Carl of Carlisle. The text of Sir Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle doesn't give her a name, so in a previous incarnation of the character I picked a random  Welsh one for her. In the meantime I have changed her name to Florie, which is a name traditionally associated with Gawain. It fits nicely, too, because the sons Gawain has with his second wife are called Florens and Lovell. Okay, Lovell is not so relevant here, but Florens can easily be the son of Florie, right? :-)

Anyway - this image is waiting to be coloured. I hope to get round to it soon.

This little portrait (postcard size) was drawn two weeks ago as an experiment. I wanted to try a combination of colour pencils (for the line art) and watercolour. So this was drawn with a purple pencil and then painted. It didn't work at all. The lines were too pale or not sufficiently defined or something - in any case, the image looked lousy. This may be partly because I used opaque paints - it's possible that the lines would have looked better if I had stuck to transparent ones. I started with a wash of Ceruleum Blue and some orange (made of Winsor Yellow and Permanent Carmine). That mixture produces a lovely, delicate tint (I think), but even though it's pale, it's not transparent. So it was probably not a good idea to use it for washing. In an attempt to save what I could of the image, I accentuated the lines with my Caput Portuum PITT pen, which turned it into something more or less acceptable. 

So what did I learn? Well, first off, I guess I shouldn't be using opaque paint in washes. And secondly, it might be a good idea to draw hair like Lot's in such a way that I can colour it in a more straightforward manner in the comic. I have to simplify it. 

...And a textured version, because the watercolour didn't live up to my hopes ;P.

The Test

Next experiment: simple and almost flat colours. There isn't a grey shade in sight - how often does that happen in my watercolours? I tried to forget most of the colour theories I have been pouring over recently and just paint. I did start off with layers of yellow wash before adding the other colours, so hopefully the image looks more unified than the last one :).

And look: it's not a portrait! It's an illustration! ;P Considering that I started this without any preliminary sketches (I just wanted an image to colour), I think the drawing is not too bad. I tried to stylise and to prioritise readability, doing my best to take Walt Stanchfield's lessons to heart.

PS: it's called "The Test" because it illustrates an episode in which Gawain completes his training and his teacher Conchobarre subjects him to the admission tests of the Fianna. That is why his hair is braided. Of course, to optimise the storytelling in this one, you should also see a few pursuers in the distance :).

CONCRIT = VERY WELCOME.

Morgana & Lucy: watercolour

I did my best to take this small painting Very Seriously. All the paints were mixed in advance, I thought about the contrast between warm and cold, I created my own blacks, I dried my brush regularly and I used a damp brush to blend different layers.I DID MY BEST. So this is probably as good as it gets at this moment. Mind you, I'm not at all sure whether my efforts actually show. Do they? (Please try the full view.)

I made a version with a Photoshop texture as well. It seems like I am drifting more and more towards traditional art + texture for the look of my Gawain illustrations. I like how this technique allows me to choose a paper with which I am comfortable and then add a textured, old-ish look afterwards.

I can't believe I've painted a cat. I see one around the house every day, and yet cats remain very difficult to draw for me. This particular cat is Lucifer (Lucy for short), Morgana's pet. I shiver at the thought of having to draw him for pages on end, but - well, I simply must have cats in my story. Here's to hoping my skills will improve :).

Princess-of-Shadows' textures

In which I try my hand at watercolour again...

I think I mentioned before that I would like to do the comic in pencils and watercolour instead of in inks as I originally intended. The reason for this is that I find that my sharp inked style does not suit my story very well. The tale has a dream-like quality that is better served with colour and pencils.There is only one snag: I am one lousy watercolour artist. I don't master the medium, for one thing. And I don't understand about colour, for another. Then again, I am very stubborn and not willing to admit defeat. I'll just keep trying.

The image below is an exercise - it is an idea I had for a possible back cover of The Darkest Hour. I added the text and frame in Illustrator, having discovered that it is so much more convenient for adding text than Photoshop. I haven't tried it yet, but I think I'm going to use Illustrator for lettering my pages too. It's much easier to draw speech bubbles with it than with Photoshop.

I discovered that adding texture in Photoshop can actually cheat people into thinking I had a half-decent watercolour to start with. But I am going to be very honest with you and show you the watercolour as it was before I started toying with it in Photoshop. As you can see, it's ... utterly incompetent. The dress went reasonably well - I like how it looks. But the contrast is not very good and the colours ... well, they don't clash, but they don't exactly spark either. I also did some damage with the masking fluid. I masked Ygraine's plaits and the contours of her figure when I added the dark washes. Not only are the dark washes a complete mess; as the masking fluid came off, it took some of the underlying paint with it and smeared the pencil lines. *sigh* So instead of having white hair with delicate blue-grey shadowing, Ygraine now has dirty grey plaits. I couldn't simply repaint because the paper had suffered as well.

This doesn't exactly bode well for my comic, does it? I have a LOT of work to do before I can tackle my pages with some confidence... I don't understand. It seems like everyone and their sister can paint with watercolour. Why do I find it so hard?

The above are two small, quick sketches of Gorlois. The bottom one was done  some time last year; the top one I did last night. Neither is good, and I completely ruined the top one with my clumsy attempt at shadowing the cloak. But they do illustrate where I am trying to go. Even if I did ruin it, I like the top one in its simplicity. I think - but goodness knows I may be wrong again - that I had better focus on painting as simply as possible, with few layers. And I'm doing my best to study colour.

Opinions and critiques are most welcome. 

NB: I have no idea why the "back cover" image has a green hue when you enlarge it. It seems like Flickr and Photobucket do something to my colours! 
ETA: Fixed! It was a CMYK image. Screens don't like that...

Pencil sketch: Kundry

Meet Lady Kundry, Gawain's third wife. She first appears in Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, where she is not given a proper name but gets a few telling epithets instead, such as "l'Orgeuilleuse de Logres" or "la Mauvaise Pucelle". Apart from having the most alluring mouth in Christendom (as per Wolfram von Eschenbach), she also has a marvellously sharp tongue that she uses deftly to lash out at every knight she meets. She makes no exception for her future husband.

I thought she should have a proper name, so I gave her the one she has in Wagner's Parzival, even though the character in the opera is quite different from my version.

Obviously, I like Kundry an awful lot :).