Saturday, March 28, 2009

Down and out in Wonderland




This one’s depressing as shit and was pretty hard to finish. I posted it yesterday... then in a bout of self doubt i removed it... which pretty much sums up how i've been feeling this week. It really didn’t help to be writing and drawing a comic about it either.

In the future I’m going to focus on more positive things.

6 comments:

Edward Lillywhite said...

Watch your axis and your time, Jay.

It would have been neat to see the second shot Over the Shoulder down on what you were drawing, however you'd have to spend pagespace moving in, then the panel, then the move out. So this way is significantly more efficient.

I don't know about the time you spend getting from panel 3 to panel 4. It feels a little weird to me that the customers and yourself have changed position.

I like how tight you are to the axis in the transition of pg2 panels 2 to 3, but the angle makes me nervous that you are too close.
I love the transition from panels 4 to 5.

The time in page 3 panels 1, 2, 3 is wicked awesome. Panel 4 I'm a little disoriented again, but I love the composition of it. Maybe even orient your hatching towards the focal point? One thing you could do is to not complete your lines to the character in the background, that might help pull establish him forward.


Don't let my criticism get you down. Your stuff is getting really awesome, man. I can't wait to see your mini and everything else you do.

jason said...

hey ed!

thanks for the thorough critique, it's always welcome.

s'funny, originally i had myself standing in page 1 panel 4... and it made more sense because it was a neutral stance, which made the transition work, i really cant understand why i sat him down. the teleportation really is awkward.

i definitely need to work on my panel flow, the truth is that i simply don't plan enough out ahead of time and it sometimes comes out a little awkward as a result.

I'm still trying to figure out what works for inks, i tend to lay in a base ink line, then thicken it to bring things forward, i hadn't considered incomplete lines to push things back though. I'm going to try that.

so yeah, thanks man, it's nice to have someone remind me of this stuff. I'm going to be working on a 20 or so page story over the summer, so I'll definitely be asking for some more.

<3

Tooninator said...

haha....um...I can't follow Ed's critique with anything worth while, but I'll try. Forgetting about storytelling itself and the few things that Ed hit one, I love what you do with ink. It's brilliant. The first few shots have great texture. You're developing your own undeniable style that is beyond charming. Keep at 'em dude.

jason said...

hah, thanks toon! I'm having a lot of fun with the inks... I find it much more relaxing than the actual drawing so i end up playing around a lot.

I'm still trying to figure it out though, once i think i actually know what i'm doing i'll let you know :)

Andrea Gerstmann said...

Live Caricature can be painful, especially at first when your thrown into it... if you are back for a second year it starts to feel less depressing... when your hand will start to automatically make something mildly pleasing...

jason said...

yeah, I'm going to be going back this year. I'm actually totally stoked for it... because by the end of last year I was fairly confident in myself so i can only build on that.

and really, caricature work has been the best drawing instruction I could ask for :)