Sixteen, Part 4
Feb. 18th, 2012 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sushusketchesWoo, in celebration of getting next week off, I've finished Sixteen, part 4! This was a tough one to do, and ended up somewhat uneven in presentation. (But more on that after the actual comic). Now all that's left is the epilogue! (Which I'm guessing will be 2-3 pages). Plus a Character page showing the characters and their names, since apparently Jono wants to know.
Okay, so what you *don't* see here is my first draft, which was 3 pages, and had even *worse* pacing issues. But, some issues that arose in the comicking:
Drawing figures: It's been a while since I last drew EvilDad and EvilSon* , so there are some character inconsistencies. I realized halfway through drawing them that I never had a profile/back view planned for these characters, which makes EvilDad and EvilSon look particularly blob-like in those views. I had also penciled the Girl growing increasingly disheveled as she succumbed to the poison, but COMPLETELY FORGOT during the inking session. I *am* rather pleased with some of Girl's poses (perhaps inspired bynendil's comment last time to make it more kungfu-y. Anyways, as a result, I've had to do a lot of "postproduction" work in Photoshop. While I managed to fix a lot of things, I still wasn't able to fix, say, the tilt of Dude's head when he is Sad. Or, say, add more blood to the Dead People. (::handwave:: it's poison!! ::handwave::)
Layout/Flow: I tried something more ambitious this time by doing a flashback/voiceover thing to depict the fight, and then doing the Watchmen thing where the dialogue is juxtaposed with different imagery that makes it "more profound" (or something). I'm not sure if it worked. In my first draft I actually had a part where we go into Dude's head and hear his thoughts, manga-style, where all his previous words come back to haunt him. I ended up scrapping that because it would have broken some of the established story-telling expectations -- thus far there hadn't been any internal thoughts or narrator voice, so if I switched right now, it would be like reading a 3rd person story that suddenly switches to first person. Dude has always been a bit of an enigma who keeps a lot bottled up** , so I guess we'll never find out what he's thinking.
Shading/Background: I really need to be bolder with my shading -- a lot of my night-time shading didn't come out in the scan, and it's something that's quite difficult to fix in post-production. There was also a lot of flashback, where I wasn't sure how to properly show as "flashback". One idea I had was to do all the flashback scenes in a sketchy style with a thin pen instead of solid blacks, but I ended up not following through on this. Whereas the background for the last part had good variation with simple, recognizable shapes, the background for this part is really uneven -- sometimes there's too much "field + sky" with nothing to break up the monotony. Other times, something is kind of thrown in there as an afterthought of "oh shoot, there should be torches and people here".
Storytelling: I must say that I've really enjoyed making Sixteen thus far. It's very different from my China Comics in that I can make choices about panel size and layout that create a certain mood or convey a certain theme. At the same time, I've had to fiddle more with the story than I expected -- sure, the story structure comes from a half-remembered short story, but the dialogue, the pacing, all come from me. For example, I spent a long time (and many erased panels) trying to figure out how to show that Dude buries Girl and the Lady, using either a random wood plank or his sword, but in the end it was shown in just 1 panel that features a magically-appearing shovel. That shovel came from the realm of Plot Necessity -- it's iconic enough to show in one concise panel that there's some burying going on, and hopefully doesn't throw the reader too out of the moment. I *did* decide to keep the more Chinese style burial mounds, though -- with the tombstone in front.
Another thing about the storytelling thus far is the issue of FIGHTS. Fighting doesn't actually play a central role in this story. (Alas, my penchant for picking martial arts stories that are somewhat deconstructive). So the fights have been in passing or in flashback. I think this has been somewhat of a disappointment to anyone who was expecting a kung fu story to actually, you know, have kung fu in it. However, I don't actually know how anyone other than Jono feels about this matter. Is it disappointing that you didn't see the entire Girl vs. EvilSon fight? Or that you won't actually get to see much of Dude taking on the Iron Tiger Clan?
-------
* Yup, that's how they appear in my script: Dad, Dude, Girl, EvilDad, EvilSon, Lady
** Which also seen in his very direct, almost blunt, moves. He fights in a boring but effective manner, going for direct thrusts that rely on his chi and timing to penetrate the opponent's defenses. He doesn't like wasting words, and he doesn't like wasting moves. In contrast, Dad and Girl use a much more flamboyant style that reflect their more carefree nature. In short, more jumping and "flying".
Okay, so what you *don't* see here is my first draft, which was 3 pages, and had even *worse* pacing issues. But, some issues that arose in the comicking:
Drawing figures: It's been a while since I last drew EvilDad and EvilSon* , so there are some character inconsistencies. I realized halfway through drawing them that I never had a profile/back view planned for these characters, which makes EvilDad and EvilSon look particularly blob-like in those views. I had also penciled the Girl growing increasingly disheveled as she succumbed to the poison, but COMPLETELY FORGOT during the inking session. I *am* rather pleased with some of Girl's poses (perhaps inspired by
nendil's comment last time to make it more kungfu-y. Anyways, as a result, I've had to do a lot of "postproduction" work in Photoshop. While I managed to fix a lot of things, I still wasn't able to fix, say, the tilt of Dude's head when he is Sad. Or, say, add more blood to the Dead People. (::handwave:: it's poison!! ::handwave::)Layout/Flow: I tried something more ambitious this time by doing a flashback/voiceover thing to depict the fight, and then doing the Watchmen thing where the dialogue is juxtaposed with different imagery that makes it "more profound" (or something). I'm not sure if it worked. In my first draft I actually had a part where we go into Dude's head and hear his thoughts, manga-style, where all his previous words come back to haunt him. I ended up scrapping that because it would have broken some of the established story-telling expectations -- thus far there hadn't been any internal thoughts or narrator voice, so if I switched right now, it would be like reading a 3rd person story that suddenly switches to first person. Dude has always been a bit of an enigma who keeps a lot bottled up** , so I guess we'll never find out what he's thinking.
Shading/Background: I really need to be bolder with my shading -- a lot of my night-time shading didn't come out in the scan, and it's something that's quite difficult to fix in post-production. There was also a lot of flashback, where I wasn't sure how to properly show as "flashback". One idea I had was to do all the flashback scenes in a sketchy style with a thin pen instead of solid blacks, but I ended up not following through on this. Whereas the background for the last part had good variation with simple, recognizable shapes, the background for this part is really uneven -- sometimes there's too much "field + sky" with nothing to break up the monotony. Other times, something is kind of thrown in there as an afterthought of "oh shoot, there should be torches and people here".
Storytelling: I must say that I've really enjoyed making Sixteen thus far. It's very different from my China Comics in that I can make choices about panel size and layout that create a certain mood or convey a certain theme. At the same time, I've had to fiddle more with the story than I expected -- sure, the story structure comes from a half-remembered short story, but the dialogue, the pacing, all come from me. For example, I spent a long time (and many erased panels) trying to figure out how to show that Dude buries Girl and the Lady, using either a random wood plank or his sword, but in the end it was shown in just 1 panel that features a magically-appearing shovel. That shovel came from the realm of Plot Necessity -- it's iconic enough to show in one concise panel that there's some burying going on, and hopefully doesn't throw the reader too out of the moment. I *did* decide to keep the more Chinese style burial mounds, though -- with the tombstone in front.
Another thing about the storytelling thus far is the issue of FIGHTS. Fighting doesn't actually play a central role in this story. (Alas, my penchant for picking martial arts stories that are somewhat deconstructive). So the fights have been in passing or in flashback. I think this has been somewhat of a disappointment to anyone who was expecting a kung fu story to actually, you know, have kung fu in it. However, I don't actually know how anyone other than Jono feels about this matter. Is it disappointing that you didn't see the entire Girl vs. EvilSon fight? Or that you won't actually get to see much of Dude taking on the Iron Tiger Clan?
-------
* Yup, that's how they appear in my script: Dad, Dude, Girl, EvilDad, EvilSon, Lady
** Which also seen in his very direct, almost blunt, moves. He fights in a boring but effective manner, going for direct thrusts that rely on his chi and timing to penetrate the opponent's defenses. He doesn't like wasting words, and he doesn't like wasting moves. In contrast, Dad and Girl use a much more flamboyant style that reflect their more carefree nature. In short, more jumping and "flying".
