Nihon Sketches

Done as merchandise for a friend's obon festival booth. A bit more what I was hoping for last few posts in terms of hitting shapes. Started out as a fairly undynamic single drawing, redrew it on another layer over the old image, then flipped it and started on another character (right panel).

So again, breaking the rule of starting from scratch. I find I'm doing this more as a consequence to being a board artist, where you're essentially redrawing over an older image if you're redrawing anything at all, given the time constraints. Double edged sword of learning how to draw fast, which theoretically should make one better at hitting something with a quick gesture first time through, but getting so caught up in the time constraint "must make output" mindset of a board artist that one doesn't bother with doing proper multiple studies of the same image or subject, as any pre-digital artist would've done. Which is sort of a negation of why anyone would redraw something in the first place, in'it.

Space Girl, plus some story detritus

Some stuff from about a sketchbook ago. Which is to say, several months to almost a year past. Feels like a bit of a cheat, posting one-off sketches and the like rather than anything story related:

Had someone ask me about a month ago how the comics were coming along. I forgot what I said, something like "Ah, work you know, paycheck, etc." But the reality is that most anything from the sketchbooks this past year just haven't been worth posting, much less the (several) abortive starts at comic work. Several things go into it, mostly just general technical drawing issues - consistency from one page to the next being a concern. But ultimately the big bugbear is, well, story. Not interested in wasting folks' time with a supposedly polished story on my part if it's going to be the narrative equivalent of a demo reel. That's fine for portfolio purposes - not for something published. Or more importantly, something that should aspire to be memorable, to the point that it can potentially define a certain place and time for the reader. Milestone - not a millstone - for both the reader and artist; take note...

 (A couple of characters - and a key moment - from Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward. )

That being said, I should start posting some of those aborted attempts at comic pages. There are several floating around the sketchbooks, fairly complete in terms of characters. Almost an entire moment even, with a beginning, middle, and end. Taking the trouble to scan them in may be the thing I need to take another look at the drawings and correct them, in effect doing another pass and pushing the shapes or poses as needed. If anything, it'll be cathartic to get the dirty laundry out of the washer after several months and into the dryer. Just like real life.

(If I remember correctly, had previously illustrated several pages of a retelling of the Nihongi - the Japanese Genesis, so to speak. Seems the main character here is retelling the part about the wild man, Susano-no-wo, near the end of the page. Pretty lady seems content with just enjoying her breakfast.)