Finished the basic geometry on Baby Catchers. The colours are all over the place and are very, very temp. I just needed them as reference to keep all the shapes straight in my head. I can’t work in a line-only mode over a long period. Here, take a look at the uncoloured lines:
I do start my work on each character with unfilled shapes. I’m generally good enough at working with vectors to be able to, like here, do all the shapes for a single character and then go about filling them from a library of colours I’ve already used elesewhere in the image.
Once I have basic geometry, like here, I can go back in, decide on which character needs the most detailed shading (Savant here needs the most, since he overlaps many characters and actually touches things like Scullers face, which is lost because of the similar colours at this stage), and which ones need to be left simple (other than stripes and a few embellishments to his armour, Roseweaver will be kept simple since he’s in the background).
Overall, I need to hammer down the colour pallette now. I’m not very happy with the colours on the coats, skin tone’s okay, Roseweaver’s colours are hideous. Then comes the detailing, and finally lighting and atmosphere. In many ways, working in vector is a lot like working in a 3D program: you start off with basic geometry and then your move on to texturing and lighting.
On the novel front, I’ve decided to do it the old old fashioned way and actually write it with a pen and paper. My handwriting sucks. I pretty-much stopped once I left school (no real reason, just moved to a computer for most work and never really needed it), and I’m really out of shape. Never written fiction like this, so I’m very unsure about the pace. Typing on the computer is sort of more my speed — I can type about as fast as I think (i.e. not very fast) — but writing it may a little slow even for me. Oh well, have to try, and it might as well be now.
Also been thinking of going back and actually reading what I wrote 5 years ago. Maybe make a few changes in light of newer plot ideas, but nothing major. Yeah, going cold into the second part of a novel is probably not the best idea. I don’t want to have it all finished up and then realise I killed* some character 5 years ago who inexplicably forms the lynchpin of my cool new plot**.
* – I don’t think I’ve killed anyone….
** – There is no cool new plot.
So, more colouring will take place, and maybe even some writing. Anyone want to read short cast and crew bios and stuff?
PS. Large version of the above image here:
