Chapter Four Pencils, Anatomy Books, and Cats

Since last week's post, I've managed to pencil thirteen pages! That's good. Now, is some of that because I sent out last week's post early? Shh shh shh, look what I have over here.

While looking through my pencils I found myself thinking "nahh, that panel's much too spoilery," or "ohh, I don't want to show that scene yet." Which is weird, because I'm not a "spoiler" type of person. It probably just means there's a lot of stuff coming to a head, a lot of conflicts boiling over, and I like how it's playing out. So even though I think "ahh spoilers don't matter," the fact that the socially-obligated involuntary spoiler alarm is going off is a good thing.

^ I like this panel, even though it runs the risk of suggesting "he just used Force Push to move all those guys away." Which he did not do. It's just exaggerated for effect. I hope it reads that way.

^ I also really like the hands in this panel. If you look closely at the rear-most hand, you can see the Ghosts of Fingers Past. On second thought, if you look closely it looks like a mess, but I promise I know what's going on there.

^ A few of these inserts are going into this chapter. I drew out the page as originally thumbnailed, but then (in this case) decided we needed something different for one panel, so drew it on a piece of scrap paper. Saves me from having to erase stuff, and also leaves open the option to stick with the original panel if it seems better when I get around to inking.

ANATOMY BOOKS

Last week I mentioned anatomy books and how I should be using them for reference. Since then, I did exactly that. I have Andrew Loomis' FIGURE DRAWING FOR ALL IT'S WORTH, Andrew Peck's ATLAS OF HUMAN ANATOMY FOR THE ARTIST, and Burne Hogarth's DYNAMIC ANATOMY.

Loomis' book is gorgeous. It's worth having just because it looks really nice and if you followed along I bet you'd draw nice figures like Loomis does.

Peck's book is more clinical. All the books have their own quirky digressions, but the crowning achievement is this one from Peck.

EYEBALL. ALWAYS WET.

Very important. Never forget.

I found myself getting the most use from Hogarth's DYNAMIC ANATOMY.

I don't want to draw like Hogarth, but his diagrams were the most helpful for understanding what goes where and how everything connects. Peck and Loomis include wonderful drawings in their books but for helping to imagine musculature and how it all works, Hogarth's diagrams were the most beneficial.

My copy of DYNAMIC ANATOMY was given to me by a high school art teacher. At the end of Grade Nine I had to leave that school to go to another. Before I did, he gave me this book and said, "keep drawing." Thank you, Mr Eklund, I assure you I have been doing exactly that.

Side-note, if you decide to acquire any of these books: DYNAMIC ANATOMY has some poor racial attitudes in it. The other books might share this quality — they're all quite old — but I haven't checked as closely.

CAT BOOKS

I took our toddler to The Big Library In The City the other day because they had a specific book I wanted to consult for historical and visual reference. While I was there, I realized I'd never searched for "Greece: Pictorial Works."

Pictorial Works! That's exactly the kind of works I need!

I searched. One title came up that did not seem particularly Greek, but I knew I had to take a look anyway.

Not just CATS IN THE SUN, this is THE COMPLETE CATS IN THE SUN.

It is a great enormous beast of a book. There are so many pictures of cats in the sun.

And, sure enough, the photographs were all taken in Greece.

Flipping through, I began to think, "this is a book? THIS? IS? A? BOOK? This is what a book can be?"

And as soon as that thought stepped one foot onto the pavement of my mind it was flattened by the Mack truck of The Obvious as I realized that, yes of course this is a book. Who wouldn't want this book.

This is all to say that as soon as PDAP is done I'll probably make a project out of going somewhere nice and taking photographs of something infinitely benign. Like "Espresso Yourself: The Coffee Cups of Italy's Countryside," or "Highland Hounds: Moor of Scotland's Sweetest Puppies."

- - - - -

For now, I will keep drawing.

Until next week,
I remain,

TC