Chapter Four Inking: HORSE TIMES START NOW

This week! SO MANY THINGS.

• Rob Roy! The movie.
• Costuming for History
• Byzantine jewellery? and Archaeology Thoughts.
• Pages!
• HORSE CONSIDERATIONS.
• New typefaces (that is, fonts).

And, as usual, there are extreme spoilers in the image carousel above, and medium-level spoilers in the images below.

But before that: other things!

ROB ROY (1995)

If, like me, you were A) around when this movie came out, and B) turned off by what I now understand to be confused marketing, you never saw ROB ROY. If this was the poster I saw back then, well, I was a teen boy, so even though my best friend had been bitten by BRAVEHEART fever (as so many of us had been), you might understand how I wasn't rushing out to buy my ticket.

Anyway, it came up in a chat with the lovely Chris Schweizer, and he subsequently enabled me to watch the movie, and I did, and wow. My major takeaway is that I just hadn't seen a movie like that in a really long time, and it feels the way I like a movie to feel. It was thoroughly transporting.

Now, I will caution that there are some unpleasantly old-fashioned qualities to the movie — our villain is coded queer, among other things — but if you're able to either accommodate that or silo it  off in its appropriate historical chambers, you get a movie with a pleasingly distinct story-shape, with some great swordplay and some lovely Scottish scenery. Thank you, Chris!

HISTORICAL COSTUME

Speaking of Chris, he recently shared this video of a talk he gave at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus: Dressing Up History: Translating Research and Reference into Narrative Costume. There are lots of great ideas in there, such as the way that the popularity of a certain historical genre (e.g., hmmm, let's say pirate movies) will spawn cheap imitators, which in turn influence the public's understanding, associating specific visual cues with times and eras. I'm bad at summarizing. Go watch!

BYZANTINE JEWELLERY and ARCHAEOLOGY

Speaking of historical costume, the other night I attended this talk presented by Pharos, the Hellenic-Canadian Cultural Society. It's been a long time since I've sought out or been exposed to this sort of academic stuff. It was, shoot, I don't know. Nourishing?

It was especially interesting to hear the presenter, Dr Georgios Makros, talk about an unusual burial. In almost all cases, a deceased woman was buried wearing a single pair of earrings. Generally, the quality of the jewellery suggested her social standing. But one woman was buried with a second pair in the grave alongside her. What did this mean? What did this indicate about the culture's burial practices? How did this signify her standing?

I guessed maybe she just wanted to take that extra pair to her grave so that her awful sister wouldn't get her grubby hands on them. But perhaps academia dislikes explanations like this, which  are too speculative to stand up to rigorous investigation. Fortunately, I wasn't alone in my thinking; during the question period, someone suggested an explanation similar to mine. So, it's nice to know others are also thinking of ancient people as individuals, with tiny individual concerns and irrational behaviours, just like us, as opposed to, say, slaves to cultural codes. I can get behind archaeology that acknowledges this.

PAGES!

This week I began inking the first of many panels that will include a horse (specifically, the beautiful Ataraxes, who we have already met).

I posted about this on Mastodon, and the wonderful Heather Galbraith offered Horse Advice, which I have taken her up on. Her Horse Facts have already greatly solidified some upcoming plot elements. If you need or want to draw A Horse, be sure to see this excellent resource. Heather is also the admin for the comicscamp.club Mastodon server, in addition to being an accomplished artist and very giving member of the comics community. Thank you, Heather!

Hmm. I just noticed that I forgot to draw in Sophia's undergarments. (Above. ^ )

^ I like the brushwork on this stork's feathers, inked using my usual Windsor Newton Series 7. Elsewhere on this page, out of curiosity (and not wanting to refill my inkwell), I tried using my Pentel Brush Pen. Reader, let me tell you, it did not cut it. I only got half way through a panel before realizing, oh it is worth it to have to clean up my inkwell and brushes.

I started using the Series 7… (checks posts)… back in February of 2022. That means I've inked roughly 150 pages using this brush, which in turn means it takes 150 pages to feel pretty comfortable with it. Sorry, Pentel Brush Pen! You are still nice and good but I am going steady with Series 7 now.

FONTS FONTS FONTS

Next week I am hoping to have a FONT SHOWDOWN.

Since my very first comic, I have been using Blambot's Mighty Zeo typeface for all my comicking. It spoke to me then and I still feel drawn to the letterforms for reasons I cannot articulate.

Unfortunately, it is an unsophisticated font. It does not have em-dashes or certain international characters that I need. And the italics look skewed. I've emailed Nate at Blambot twice to ask if I can hire him to update the typeface, but I haven't heard back. Maybe he's just busy, maybe he's not interested.

ANYWAY. Blambot had a "Cyber Monday" sale, so I bought a different, more sophisticated typeface from him. I've also downloaded trial versions of several Comicraft fonts. I'm planning to put together a few sample images so you can all weigh in if you like.

Barring the eventuality that I try out the new fonts and hate them all, look forward to a FONT SHOWDOWN next week!

Until then,
I remain,
buried with a second pair of earrings,

TC