Personal reflections on artistic progress and challenges.

External Contexts

External Contexts

Part One: Verner’s Tale Excerpt, The Storyboard

According to an old saying one should always start… in the middle. Which is why this is an excerpt from what would theoretically be chapter twelve of a twenty-one-chapter story. Our four adventurers have finally arrived at their destination far up north, have braved monsters and men alike on their arduous journey, and have formed a relatively tight-knit group, and are now finally stepping foot on the Snow Queen’s land. Verner had set out many weeks before from his little cursed kingdom in hopes of finding expertise on how to break said curse and the Snow Queen’s (rumored) extensive library on the subject of corrupted magic is his most promising lead. The whole company had hoped she would be open to negotiations. Maia, a mage used to the ever-hospitable culture of the Flower Kingdom, had expected it. However, recent events seem to have rendered the Snow Queen less than welcoming of unexpected visitors.

Our scene starts after Ida, the Snow Queen, had already refused the company entry at least once. Verner and the rest, having traveled too far to give up easily, press the issue. A short fight ensues. The drawings start right as she gives the final blow, a low-powered blast to Verner’s shoulder. They have a short conversation wherein Verner accuses her of heartlessness, but instead of enraging her further this seems to change Ida’s mind completely, much to the company’s confusion. There’s a flashback where a different young man says the exact words Verner did before leaving in disappointment. They follow her into the castle, she gives them some basic rules, grabs a bottle of what is clearly hard alcohol, storms out and slams the door, leaving our group of adventures to hover awkwardly in the middle of the drawing room.

The Thumbnails

All the best projects start with incomprehensible thumbnails. Here are four of mine. I also figured out the dialogue eventually and decided where to position it at this stage instead of having to work it in later.

Color

I say “Color” but what I mean is color, lighting and figuring out what shapes are important. I still have some problems with establishing focal point in a composition and making sure it remains the focal point throughout the process. I get so bogged in the details sometimes that the point of the picture gets muddled, and the story is never very well served by that at all.

Ida’s Story 1

Ida’s Story 2

Blue makes sense to me, in a cold environment, so that’s what I went with. White would have made Ida disappear in the background, which would rather be the point of someone wearing polar bear skin, but it’s not what I’m looking for at the moment. Ooh, I could add a scene at the beginning where the group first trespasses onto her land and don’t expect an ambush because she’s camouflaged into the snow… or something. I think the scene needs a little more setup anyway. The cold open still makes sense, but some more context wouldn’t be remiss.

Ida’s Story 3

Ida’s Story 4

Flashback starts at bottom two panels. I will make it clear when I start drawing for real by having the speech bubble be shared by both characters. Maybe will do that thing where the text has an ombre effect to show that the speaker has changed.

Ida’s Story 5

Ida’s Story 6

I need to make the silhouettes clearer here somehow. Runa (crazy hair robber girl) and Maia (short magic fairy) are holding up a pistol and powering up magic respectively. Morten (big guy, leaning on Runa) is currently missing his prosthetic leg and rifle. I haven’t decided if he should just lose the rifle in the fight, if he should lean on it like a cane or if he should somehow still try to aim it at Ida whilst using Runa as a crutch. The last one would be the coolest, but I have no idea how to draw it yet. Must experiment.

Ida’s Story 8

I do want the palace to look like an ice palace but not look like other ice palaces I’ve seen in media before… especially Disney’s Frozen. I’ve brainstormed, but not yet come up with a design I’m happy with. The story needs the palace to have a wing for people who are used to temperate climates, so it would not be made up of ice in its entirety anyway. It would be cool if the entrance also had some sort of magical guard “dog”. Designing creatures is always fun.

Ida’s Story 9

Ida’s Story 10

The designs aren’t very consistent (Ida keeps losing the shoulder spikes, for example), but consistency really wasn’t the point of this draft. I just wanted to get the action down. And the atmosphere, the contrast between warm and cool in this last bit is important. It shows that they’re in a safe environment and it also helps differentiate between the present and Ida’s memories of Kay, as seen in the panel above.

Ida’s Story 11

Haven’t figured out how I want everyone to stand yet. We don’t see much of Verner’s wing because of the cloak and I’ve still not decided if that’s good (because realistically, he would cover it in cold weather) or bad (because his design is rather dependent on the wing). Maia is very short, but she can, theoretically fly and could sit anywhere in the composition and Morten is supposed to be the tallest but he’s also leaning on Runa… The way they’re all crowding in front of the door needs work. Logistics for the next draft.

Notes for Next Draft

Just after deciding to call it quits on this set of thumbnails, I took a bunch of screenshots and made notes for myself in red.

1 Corrections

Part Two: Paths for the Fantasy Artist

aka A More Organized Approach to the Previous Posts’ Subjects

In the last post, I wrote a lot about how confusing finding a path is and made an emotional mess of the text. In this one I feel like I may be able to bring a little structure to the table.

“External Projects” could mean several things from gallery showings, to commissions, to printing a collaborative zine. My focus on storytelling, fantasy and comics makes a serialized webcomic a pretty good fit for this course. It would also be an excellent opportunity to finally push myself to tackle a bigger project.

But I’m also trying to think about my career as a whole. What sorts of projects would I like to make on a regular basis? There will be many compromises made along the way for the sake of practicality. That is the nature of any career, and just life. But now is the time to brainstorm in the realm of ideals. What would I like my career to look like? Is it odd to say that I never let myself think that far? Not deeply, at least. I always had simple answers ready for when people asked mid-small-talk. I certainly never let myself imagine overwhelming success. I don’t know if it’s a matter of my own personality or if I absorbed the idea of the Starving Artist so deeply that imagining financial success as a person who makes pictures for a living seems either childish or obnoxiously proud. But if I never allow myself to have success in my own mind, I daresay my chances will always be somewhere in the realm of zero.

There are a great many paths and projects an illustrator might want to be a part of. The most common categories are Commercial (advertising, products, editorial), Technical (medical, infographics), Publishing/Book Illustrators (book covers, children’s books, comics), Concept (character design, environments, visual development) and others like fashion illustration, courtroom illustration, etc. I, as most illustrators do, will work in several areas over the duration of my career. The thing that will most likely remain constant is the focus on fantasy/sci-fi related media.

1. Publishing (Book Covers, Interior Illustrations, Graphic Novels, probably in YA and middle grade)

2. Board Games/TTRPG’s aka Table Top Role Playing Games (Characters, Environments, and other game-specific illustrations)

3. Webcomics/Indie Comics

4. Fantasy Art (traditional work sold more like fine art)

A lot of these things overlap in some way or another. If I do traditional work for a digital project, I might decide to sell the original too. And guidebooks for certain games can be similar to illustrating any other storybook. A lot of these need concept art in some fashion or another. They also can overlap in subject matter, as they will all require archetypical characters like knights, princesses, and wizards as well as more-or-less fantastical animals, monsters, magical objects and grand locations. I confess that I do not have this range quite yet. I’m looking forward to tackling it though! This feels like permission to go for the silly thing somehow. I don’t know when I developed so much anxiety around making art I like.

The reason I list so many areas is because I don’t want to limit my options in terms of types of clients I’m thinking of as I’m slowly creating a proper portfolio, because I’ve limited the type of work I’m going to make: fantasy.

The webcomic idea is probably going to be where I direct my personal work, with both my own writing and images. It’s something for the long-term, because I would like to approach it as a collaborative effort with whoever finds themselves interested in the story. It’s not something one makes a real career out of quickly or securely, but storytelling is what I’ve always wanted to do and I think this path appeals to me in that respect. The reason I’m taking this idea up and experimenting with it rather than all of the others listed above is because I think it’s a good vehicle for showing and growing my skills in the rest. The comic will need a cover, there are character and environment designs, and there’s a great deal of storytelling through both words and images. It’s also an excellent way to get invested in straightening out my online presence/my website and social media, because I need to work out how people can find me easily and what they will see when they do find me.

That is, in fact, the next priority. The website, specifically. In the next section I will propose some changes and make some updates on there. I will obviously be working on progress with this comic, but I do need to have somewhere to put it after and presentation is key with both art and writing.

Part Three: Dissertation

As established in the last post, the Words and Pictures theme is overly broad. My interest when it comes to Words and Pictures is how one can create new meaning when combining them. Not how words and pictures enhance each other but how the elements, when separated, lose their meaning entirely. I did some research on the visual language of comics and found some interesting takes on structure and how one might or might not define “visual language”, but I have only read a little on how meaning changes when one “constructs a sentence” using both words and pictures. The potential for unique storytelling when employing the fullest advantages of both words and pictures is something worth delving into. A picture can be worth a thousand words, but words themselves are best for conveying character voice, timing, sarcasm, and even atmosphere. A narrator may contradict the events pictured, may like to speak in rhyme, and may offer clues the viewer is not privy to otherwise.

An appropriate research question might be: What are the main methods of combining words and pictures to convey unique meaning in the language of comics?

The Plan and Opening Thoughts

Engagement and External Partners