It is a truth universally acknowledged, by many a creative person, that expensive notebooks are traps. The beauty of them, the craft involved in making them, is not in question. But it is their very beauty and craft that makes a creative person pause, hesitate, worry, over what goes in it, be it scribble or […]
I mentioned in a previous post about how I should be cataloging my process, if not for pure posterity & narcissism, then at least as a counter to my own spotty memory. I’ve often hesitated to put a lot of this ‘junk’ on my blog, considering starting separate blogs or repositories for such things (on […]
Every New Year since I was 12 I think to myself, “You should really learn to draw.” And at the end of every year I find that I have drawn less than the previous year. My problem is twofold: while I have ample access to teaching material on drawing and have dipped in and out of it frequently, I have never developed a knack for daily practice. Secondly, when I do practice I try to draw everything I imagine I would like to draw, and within a few minutes a lack of experience and skill leads me to be frustrated with the terrible doodles on the page which look nothing like the grand illustrations I imagine.
So this year I thought I’d just try to redraw the greatest graphic novel of our times: Watchmen.
One day a few years ago I was re-reading Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic for the umpteenth time, and was struck by the quality of the drawing, the writing — just everything, really. I wondered when — or if! — I’d ever develop skills good enough to make comics even a fraction as good. As I pored over each page a memory flooded back: me hunched over a table — I must have been nine — copying a money shot of Kilowog smashing into the big villain from the Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn TPB. It was the first time I’d attempted something like that, it wasn’t exactly great, but it was a fairly accurate facsimile of the original. I noted with some disappointment that in the sixteen years since my drawing skills had probably deteriorated, not improved.
An idea struck: why didn’t I just try to redraw Watchmen? It was basically what most kids do, learn to draw by copying from their favourite comics, but I’d take it to the next level by trying to reproduce the entire book. Every page, every panel, every word balloon and every title, teaching myself — if not classical draftsmanship — then at least the workings and pitfalls of making an actual superhero comic. I put the idea out of my mind for a while, but this year I dusted off my copy and set to work in my free time.
There are several reasons I chose Watchmen over other comics. Firstly, I like it a lot, and was going to re-read it before the movie comes out anyway. Secondly, it’s set up on a strict grid, which not only appeals to the graphic designer in me, but also makes my life a lot easier as far as reproducing pages is concerned. Thirdly, it’s a dense script as most Alan Moore ones are, and since I was going to be doing the word balloons too (an Alex Toth doctrine from that infamous Steve Rude critique), it would really teach me something about getting words into a panel.
Finally,it’s not drawn in a highly stylised way. If I’d chosen works by other artists I admire like Darwyn Cooke or Terry Dodson, I’d have to look past their styles in order to interpret their work, or worse, I’d end up mimicking their styles too much and not really learning. Dave Gibbons’ work in Watchmen is almost photographic; it’s still drawn like a comic, but the proportions are realistic and everything is done with such attention to detail that there’s a lot of room for interpretation.
And interpreting it I would be; I didn’t want to just copy it or try to trace DG’s work line for line.
As of today I’ve finished my first inked page, and that’s because I’ve been having some teething troubles. I’m much, much slower at drawing that I have any right to be. A single inked panel takes me around 90 minutes, and that’s about as much time as I can set aside for a side project like this. I can grumble endlessly about how frakking detailed Dave Gibbons’ work is and how he must be a Terminator/Cylon, but the plain truth is my hands are stubs that don’t know what to do.
Of course, this exercise is designed to remedy just that (I hope), so I’m not worried.
Then, of course, I’m a tightwad, so I wasn’t going to waste art paper for something like this. My first pages were done on ‘computer paper’ — office drones from Accounts will know these as wide, perforated white-on-one-side sheets. Fold them in half and you get a two comic-book-sized pages ready for Japanese fold binding. Perfect, right?
Except they’re terrible to draw detail on. Maybe Archie comics would be okay, but certainly not Watchmen. Also, when I say comic-sized pages, I mean actual printed comic size pages. Most artwork that goes into comics is done at larger sizes and shrunk down.
Despite knowing that, I thought I’d try anyway, and the first two pages were done on the bad paper at that size. I couldn’t ink them — I gave up even trying to do the word balloons after two panels because it was too small. Until now I’ve always drawn small; tiny notebooks, tiny sketches. I shudder at the sight of blank A4 papers, not knowing what to do.
But this project couldn’t continue at that size, so I dragged out a roll of cheap sketch paper (I think you still get it at IKEA in the kids section, for about $4) and cut out foot-wide sheets. This gave me the required 10 by 15 inch frame I needed, and immediately I could tell the difference. The paper is still nowhere as good as art stock, but it’ll do.
For actually drawing the thing, I’m primarily using 2B mechanical pencils. I’m comfortable with them and I hate sharpening/going at ’em with a knife. Inks are first laid down with a Japanese brush pen (double-ended, small and medium tips), which gives the whole thing a certain manga-esque ‘bounce’. The lines are a bit more slack and curvy than Dave Gibbons (did he use 0.1 Rotring engineering drawing pens or something?) and this is partially down to my more cartoony style as well. I tackle the word balloons and text first with a fine-liner, then do figures from foreground to background.
So as not to dull the brush pen, I fill in the blacks with a couple of sizes of markers. I don’t erase the underlying pencils, mostly because this project isn’t going anywhere beyond this so I don’t need to, and also because the paper is too thin to stand it and I’ll ruin whatever is there. Also, it’s nice seeing your construction lines now and then.
For now I’ve finished just one page (the first two and cover don’t count since they were on the smaller paper) and at this rate I’ll probably finish this in around 3.2 years (I did the math). I’m enjoying it immensely, but I don’t want it to consume my life. So I’ve decided that for every page of Watchmen I do, I should then do a finished original illustration. I don’t want to just redraw comics for the rest of my life, I want to make some of my own!
Even at this early stage I’ve learned so much. It may be trivial knowledge for most artists, but it’s gold for me, and the only way I would have learnt it is the way I’m doing it.
I won’t be putting up all the pages online for public viewing, so please don’t ask. I won’t give away or sell any of these drawings either. The line between fan-art and copyright infringement is a thin one, and a redraw of a 400 page graphic novel somebody else created is not something I want to put up. If you haven’t read Watchmen please go out and buy or order a copy. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
I will update every month or so with my progress and musings on the work as I go along. I hope you’ll drop by now and then and tell me how it’s going.
V
The further illustrated (and mundane) adventures of Mister Savant! Still after books, this time he seems to be negotiating the price on a tome. Typical, the man is so obsessed with cheap and obscure paperbacks when he should be trying to get his hosts to part with their hats!
This drawing started off in my 15x18cm notebook with a vague idea in my head late one night, and so I ended up tackling it a little differently. I didn’t thumbnail or roughly draw in the entire scene, instead finishing the pencils on one character entirely and then moving onto the next.
The result is apparent (to me at least); the quality and styles of the figures vary wildly. Savant (back to us) was drawn in first, hence the lines are tentative and ‘noodly’, lacking definition. The short man (is it Norton or Fenroy, I haven’t decided) came next, and by now I was warming up and starting to have some fun; the snow globe hats, for instance, were a last second addition. The pink fairy was next, and since her pose was somewhat unconventional the lines are a bit uneven here too, although I’m happy with the way she turned out.
In order to fill the rest of the space I wondered if I should perhaps draw in some background material such as stacks of books or shelves, but since I’m not very comfortable drawing backgrounds (and I’d already drawn more than enough books in Mister Savant’s Stupid Quest for the Book Whose Name He Simply, Well.. Forgot!), I decided a couple more figures might fill in the page nicely. I had the most fun drawing these two figures, namely the tall man and Sophie, and I think it shows. The lines are the most confident here. Indeed, the visual difference between Savant and Sophie makes me a bit uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to rub it out and start over. It’s only a sketch!
The second fairy was added in as an afterthought as I had by then decided on having no background elements whatsoever, and to put in some kind of chandelier or something in that space to balance the composition would have seemed out of place.
As usual with my sketches, I left in the construction lines. I scanned it in and coloured it in GIMP; just a simple flat colour pass and one for adding in dodge/burn highlights and shadows. Not the most elegant job I’ve done (probably has something to do with the fact that I only used fuzzy round brushes) but satisfactory.
I like doing these Savant sketches. They’re a lot of fun and even as I completed this one I thought up a bunch more to do. I like them even more when they have a bit of colour on them. I’ve mostly always been a black-and-white sketch person, leaving colour for more finished pieces, but I’m starting to see its merits even in quick work. Also it’s one more place to practice colour theory and hone my skills.
I think that on the next ones I should definitely ‘rough in’ the scene before going to finished pencils to avoid those awkward style changes. Im not practiced or proficient enough a cartoonist to even have a style yet, so I should remember that warmup time is needed.
Oh, and next time I promise he won’t be doing anything boring.
V
The last time I visited the swamp, things were a little different. Now, as you can see, the neighbourhood has developed a bit with proper buildings and nicely made roads (er, their somewhat unconventional building material notwithstanding).
Don’t assume that this urban renewal has done anything for the property rathes, though. Sure, the locals are friendly, will greet you with tooty grins (and they can’t wait to have you for dinner), but it’s sill a swamp that is prone to space ship crashes. Parking’s a bit of an issue, then.
My first sketch was in a notebook size, and I was very happy with it. I knew there was a lot that could be improved, and that the final illustration would be on a larger paper. So for this second try at it, I drew it on an A4 sheet. Also, this time I didn’t ink it in; the larger space allowed me to put down more pencil work without ending up with a grey mess (the main reason I ball-point inked the last one).
I’m not very happy with this sketch. The temples in the background certainly add intrigue, but much of the drama and atmosphere of the first sketch — the fact that very little could be seen in the shadows — was gone. The crashed space vessel’s new position allows me to show more of the wreckage, but it a finished piece the detail at play there may take away from the main part of the illustration, which is the two space exploreres and the monster. Also, the ‘camera angle’ of the image still needs to be made more dynamic and tightened up.
I find that I’m still a little too used to drawing small; as you can see the edges of this sheet are barely drawn in, and the people and the monster at the centre are much smaller in proportion with the whole page than they were in the first sketch. There was, admittedly, an attempt to make the scope of the image bigger in this, but that is only partly responsible of the small figures.
I think I might do one or two more goes at this before the final. One of them should be coloured in, as I haven’t experimented with how that will affect it (honestly, I hadn’t even decided on whether or not it would be a colour or black-and-white picture until now). That decision will affect how the final pencils or inks are done.
Oh well, live and learn, practice makes perfect, etc etc.
V
After months of slacking off, I finally got round to doing something I should have done way back in March: I’ve redesigned the site’s look!
When I switched over to Drupal I used the Minnelli template, a default template that comes with the program. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice and functional template, but being a graphic designer and using a standard template on my own site is a bit… well, shameful.
It took me a few hours yesterday to come up with a design that’s been more or less stewing in my brain for ages. It took the better part of the last 24… well, 32 hours for me and Samir — well, mostly Samir — to convert it from a graphic in Inkscape to a working HTML and CSS template.
This is the first time I’ve worked with the guts of Drupal, and it’s been an illuminating experience. In my previous CMS, Pivot, a lot of the functions were handled in the backend’s configuration, which meant that the template was more of a ‘wallpaper’ and it would take me about a day after it was ready to get all the right settings done in Pivot admin to make it look like what I wanted. Drupal is far less, um, guided and that is really it’s strength. You can pretty-much do anything with this CMS if you know enough PHP programming (I do not). You can probably run an entire small country using Drupal.
Unlike most people, as a old school techie I warm to complex and highly tinker-friendly things like this. In order to get the words ‘read more’ and ‘2 comments’ to work right and reposition them in the right place, we’ve had to put in a dozen or so lines of PHP code, most of which sounded like Greek at first, but have now started to make some kind of sense.
The final result is a design that is 99.99% exactly like the Inkscape mockup I made yesterday — usually in the conversion things don’t always look quite the same — and it’s certainly the tightest, most finished layout I’ve done so far.
I like it — I like it a lot, actually — and it’s a lot more functional than the older one. Post categories, for instance, have been moved up to under the title of each post, and no longer jostle for space with the ‘read more’ and ‘comments links like they used to (Amit, you should find it easier to read. When a post was under several categories that area would get really messed up).
Please note that since I’m not an idiot I don’t use Internet Explorer, and this design may not show up correctly in IE. It has been tested in Firefox and is rendered correctly in Mozilla browsers. I know that in IE6 the Journal graphic on top doesn’t show up well; it may be better in a newer version, but I figure that jumping through hoops (and trust me when I say it’s like pulling teeth) to get something to work there is only encouraging Microsoft to continue to make crappy non-compliant browsers.
So there.
There are now two sidebars while still retaining the same width on the main content, so now you don’t have to scroll halfway down the page to see the recent comments (but you all subscribe to the Comments RSS feed anyway, don’t you? Hmm?). I feel it’s a better use of the space, and it allows me to have more important things like that picture of me giving you a big, loving smooch on every page.
*mwah*
Believe it or not, this is only the third custom template I’ve ever done for one of my own sites. I’ve actually used more templates by others than my own! Some of you may recognise these:
This design was on the old iLevel page, my first non-blogger blog. It came in around 6 months into my using that site which ran Greymatter. I did this design on vacation in India on a 166Mhz Pentium 1 laptop with a wonky power cord, uploaded over a 56K connection. It was my first experience with CSS and was great! I still love this layout and may end up reworking it as a standalone free template for other people to download and use someday. You can even read all the old content from that time in the ilevel.prohosting section of the journal (there are some nice photos there. If you’ll recall, iLevel was almost exclusively a photoblog).
This was the template I used on my last free host, and indeed it was the template that the site was running until March 2007. I was using Pivot as the CMS for a year or so — and used a slightly personalised version of the popular Kubrick template — before designing this one (hmm, spotting a trend here). While I like it I’m not really in love with it anymore; it doesn’t quite reflect the site. Again, it might return someday as its own thing.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t just use some of those old looks (I don’t think they’ve gotten old or outdated) it’s because the site as it is now would not be best suited by those templates. The look of a webpage is a very important thing, and it should complement the content and the personality of the author in order for the site to grow. allVishal.com is not iLevel, nor is it the site that it was a year ago. Sure, the journal (that used to be the blog) has all the old content for archival purposes, and it will continue to have photos and sketches and strange musings, but a website is more than just a blog for me, and I want to explore all of those possibilities. This new layout will be a better canvas on which to do that.
I’m actually one of those old crones who remembers a time before blogs, when we just had websites, and believe it or not those were wonderful things in their own right. I love the blog medium, but to solely focus on it and forget everything else the internet and the HTML page is capable of is like abandoning books because magazines and newspapers have been invented (I stole this analogy from my brother, amongst several other things).
Anyway, I hope you like this new layout (tell me if there are any bugs!) and now that I’ve decided on a visual look I can get to work on the rest of the site’s content!
V
Whew!
Just under the wire, but I made it! I have now officially reached the target on one of these internet writing marathon thingummies. While there were weeks of inactivity and times when I was forced to work on other things, I was able to put some good — but mostly crap — words to a page, and reach the 20,000 goal.
I’m still not satisfied, however, because the story isn’t finished. No, try as I did, the words ‘FADE OUT. THE END’ were not in my script; in fact, there is a really long way to go.
I could have, of course, rushed it and tried to stick to the 20K goal like a good trooper. Probably I would have been able to tell my story — a bare-bones version of it, anyway. As it stands now I seem to have grossly underestimated the size of the story. It’s not the simple little fantasy fairy tale as I had imagined it, but it sort of still is (who knew that two people in a room would need more description than a massive battle between armies?). It’s taken me 20,000 words to get to the point that I would imagine as being 15 minutes into a two-and-a-half hour movie.
I’ve also discovered that the story doesn’t quite work as a movie anyway. Some of you may shout ‘Trilogy!’ at this point, and I’ve mulled that over too, but there just aren’t any good break points to make it into such a beast.
I suppose the best thing it could be is a miniseries of some sort, but all of this speculation is useless at this juncture, because it’s a barely complete less-than-first draft version of a story that has many, many holes in it. I will continue writing it, if only because I’ve set it up as a project with which I have no expectations of showing it to anyone for, like, ever, so I can be as messy and incoherent with it as I want to be (lots of descriptions that go, “she has teh big boobz hehe” and “whoa, its all ‘splosionz!”).
If it ever shows up, then it will be in some kind of visual form. A graphic novel, perhaps, seeing as I have no access to a studio (animation or otherwise) who would be foolish enough to produce my work.
Not yet, anyway (evil laugh).
More stuff about writing soon, including the inside story of a Savant tale I’ve been putting off for a month in order to write this Script Frenzy thing. Hope you’re all being creative. I miss youse guys.
V
The other day I finally bothered to buy an optical mouse again. The old one had gone wonky and had been replaced, for a few months, with a ball one. While installing it I suddenly realised that the little graphics tablet attached to my work computer — hidden beneath a pile of well-intentioned clutter — was indeed working. Samir had fixed whatever byzantine driver issues were afflicting it, and in typical Samir fashion had now forgotten quite how he did it and when it had happened (btw, have you checked out his spiffy new blog and site?). With another hour to go before The Simpsons, I decided to give it and the new mouse a whirl.
Firing up the GIMP I loaded up a random picture from my vast collection of junk and played around with various unfamiliar filters and script-fu widgets. One I did have some familiarity with but hadn’t used in years is called iWarp, and is sort of like the liquify tool in Photoshop, or like that old turn-of-the-century tech show favourite, Kai’s Power Goo. It allows you to grow, shrink, warp and shift around various parts of the image, and it’s therefore very useful in creating anime-style characters. That’s what I did to the celebrity picture that formed the base of this. The result looks almost nothing like the original.
From there I took it into Inkscape and used the bitmap tracer to turn it into vector art, then fiddled around with the colours, added in details and shapes to make it more graphic and less like a traced picture. Finally, a background and a random caption (from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, of course). The oversized text in the background is done with a stylus using Inkscape’s calligraphy tool. The word balloon is a standard union boolean of an ellipse and a triangle.
Overall, only twenty minutes of work, which by my standards is a blink of an eye (you all know how many months I can spend abandoning… um, finishing work).
I should do these quickies more often. Hope you like it (and I hope you actually clicked on the image to see the whole, wallpaper-sized thing 😛
V