So this page was difficult. I took about 3 days to finish this one. Mainly because I got sick and had to take out 2 days of it from working on it. And even today on the third day, now that I am not as sick anymore, it was still a drag. Scenes like this that are not as action packed are harder. Two people in a room with a black panther – i mean, that does sound interesting, but not as interesting as a jet plane or gun fights.
For this page, I did the pencils and spent one slow boring morning doing that. This is a significant scene even though it is not crazy dramatic. Hence there is a pressure to get it right. I could feel myself getting sick the morning I was doing the pencils. Funny story, I thought I'd try a cold shower this morning. I did so and it felt nice, but I think I had a strain of flu in my body and that evening I went down with a cold. My body just went cold!
The next morning I sat for less than an hour and started the lines but it went nowhere. I was definitely getting sick.
So I did the lines on the third morning (or maybe even the fourth morning). I'd been watching a few tutorials on inking on YouTube though my "digital minimalism" policy didn't allow me to, but because I was sick, I allowed myself some luxuries. But the couple of things I learned from Youtube about inking is that "contrast is your best friend when it comes to inking". I knew that but when you look at my comic book this far, there haven't been a lot of contrast. And the other thing I learned from youtube is that when you're inking you can make use of all the different techniques even on one art work. Again, to emphasise contrast. I thought that would be a taboo thing to do – to use multiple techniques on a page – for eg, pigment liners, ink with dry brush, ink with wet brush, ink with nib, shading with pen, shading with hatching, shading with wet brush – all of the above to communicate texture, contrast etc.
Drawing and writing a comic book is a major process of construction and assembly. It is crazy the amount of layers, technique it involves. And speaking of layers, one thing that does make me a little sad is the layer of pencils that no one will get to see on the final page. There is something very dynamic about pencil scribbles because they are very gestural and full of movement. But when the final inks cover it, eventually the pencils are rubbed out. Anyway, that is the nature of this art.
This one's an example of the two things I learned on Youtube. Using brush on Dolly, the panther, makes her look fluid and cat-like, whereas everything else, Calix and the blankets look a little less fluid. They also look like they are of a different make, a different breed, opposing elements. Which is a nice way to communicate.
I liked how simple those figure drawings are but the rendering of them looks nice. The subtleties of Bri's hips and Calix's downward tilt of his head – I'm happy with them though they are in no way perfect!