AID 6: More things to keep in mind

 Overall I'm pretty happy with the growth my art is having and the directions I'm going in with it. 

As always there are things where I didn't reach the goals I was aiming for. That's what this blog series is for. For me to see if I can pinpoint where execution and intent failed to meet and try to keep it in mind for the next time I put ink to paper

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 The hand-lettering is definitely unpolished, but it fit with the look of the comic far better than any font ever has. The polish will come with practice, but there are a couple of letters I plan to try and keep an eye on when I'm drawing them;

 Keeping the letters consistently touching the guidelines is a general issue, but drawing the U as a single line makes it too easy to have the letter float. Same happens with the O. O also has... tails?... from where the two halves fail to meet.

I think the U in squirrel here is the best way to approach it. R in general has a good shape. It's attaching the right leg in a good spot I need to remember. 

As for the visuals...

 Digby could have used some thicker lines on the right side and some shadows being cast by the shelf to get across the idea of the lamp being the room's light source a bit better, but this is nitpicking. You can see the sequence of events on the page clearly and that's all that matters.

This installment was laid out with the idea of using a digital font. Large for the phone user, space consuming for the artist. 

When I decided to pull the trigger on hand lettering I did a few trials finding the best height on the lettering guide to be readable for as many people as possible without it overpowering the art. That's what you see there.

It left me with a lot of empty space though. Redoing the panels to have a better balance would have required an amount of work that wasn't too far off from just doing them from scratch. Nah. Roll with what you got.

 Now that I know I'm hand lettering, the old "Balloons First - Art Second" method will be used for the layouts. Which should carry through all the way to the inks if I did it right.

On to character design;

 Sydney's design was made as a contrast to Digby in every way. Tall bubbly space babe vs the short frowny Earth woman. Long hair vs short. Wide open sparkly eyes vs half lidded and dull.

The long bangs and bored half-closed eyes were a poor choice IMO. We're a face focused as a species and the eyes are the anchors of that. What I have makes it hard to depict subtle emotions and I find it too easy to get the proportions wrong. And even if they're right they look off. 

 Going forward I'll be shortening the bangs and having them combed off to the side a bit. I plan to grow out her hair as well.

Lastly, hands.

 

The pencils were fine. I always go off the rails when inking the fingers. I don't know why. If I had to guess I'd say that I tend to make long dramatic lines and tiny stuff is always wibblies. Fingers need a lot of fineness and carefulness that I'm lacking. I'm either making mad lines or tiny wibblies instead of fingers.

I'll just have to grit my teeth and keep fighting my own hands to ink hands.

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So what is my intent for this comic? 

1. I want to make something that feels like an indie comic from the 80s or 90s. Something you'd see photocopied, folded, and stapled with a single staple.

2. I also want to revive some of that old Archie comic skill of telling a complete story in five to eight pages.  

3. Just generally become a better writer and artist than I am now.

4. MAKE A BILLION DOLLARS!

That last one might not happen but the rest will. I just need to keep banging at it.