Colour Scripts and Follow-Up (Cover and more…)

This week, some follow-up on last week's post, another video recommendation, and a look at the first batch of Colour Script pages for Chapter Three!

^ Last week I posted this cover, and Tealin rightly pointed out the tangent where the sword meets the letter T in the logotype. JOKE'S ON YOU, SARAH, I also noticed that tangent, but told myself, "I'll fix that later if anyone notices." I guess when I say "joke's on you" what I mean is "joke's on me," and when I say that what I REALLY mean—if I weren't aggressively predisposed toward insincerity— is, "thank you for pointing that out, I appreciate it."

Anyway, thank you all, Dear Readers, for the kind words on the cover. :)

FOLLOW-UP: POINT OF CURIOSITY

Thank you also to everyone who replied to my idle question last week—"is it important to you, Dear Patron, that PRACTICAL DEFENCE is available for free online to anyone who wants to read it there?"

To clarify, I am considering making Chapters Five and Beyond strictly Patron-Only. I wanted to know (and still do want to know) whether anyone felt that it was an important aspect of their patronage that the comic be available free for all to read.

Regardless, Chapters One through Three will continue to be publicly available. It's like "shareware," kind of. :)

BEHIND THE LENS WITH COLIN PRIOR AND JOE CORNISH

A recommendation: this three-part series (one, two, three) following two photographers around the Scottish Highlands as they look for photographic opportunities.

I came for the scenery, but what I wasn't expecting was the quality of the conversation. I enjoyed the way they talked about the different elements of composition. It's not explicitly instructive, but I feel like I learned a lot from this video, just hearing the way the two photographers spoke (tangentially, it makes for an extremely refreshing change from the usual sort of garbage on YouTube). I also enjoyed the reverence they have for the landscape and the natural world and the way they express that.

What I loved, though, was hearing them rip into each other. Joe pulls out a Sigma-branded umbrella (on this Sigma-sponsored series), and Colin ribs him for it, "nice bit of product placement you got there."

Colin comes over to look at Joe's viewfinder, saying, "let's take a look at this masterpiece," and the note in his voice is hilarious.

On the tonal flips-side, I ended up on Joe Cornish's site, and his About page ends with this paragraph, which I am quoting here for truth:

Wilderness is to the educated urban elite a conceit, an irrelevance, an  anachronism of Romanticism. I am familiar with the arguments, understand  the philosophical foundations and humanist logic. But still, my  intuitive self has drawn its conclusions and I am stuck with them. My  heart feels there must be another way, where we cherish, respect, revere  and protect all that is wild, all that is left. It may not be a matter  of economics but it most certainly is a matter of soul. To preserve  remaining wilderness, and to respect the rights of wild creatures for  whom it is home is also to preserve our sense of what it means to be  fully human, for now, and for all future generations.

COLOUR SCRIPTS!

Started digging in to colour scripts this week. I told myself, "don't be so precious with them," because I noodled on them too much on Chapter Two. Plus, I tried to be kind to myself and remember that I've been away from colouring for a few months, working on the penciling and inking, so my colour muscles will be weak.

Below, a few selected panels…

^ First, the new pages for Chapter Two, with the Sea Festival. I think of the colour script stage as a testbed, a place to say "does my colour idea work?" This is one where I had to tell myself, "okay, move on." I think the fundamental ideas in these panels are working, so let's not spend too much time tightening things or fussing. After all, I will be re-colouring the whole thing when I do final colours.

^ I find foliage really tricky because to me, it doesn't look right until you get all the detail in. With that panel on the left, I really struggled with the lighting design, and I think that will change on the final page, but the colour scheme is working. I ask myself, "does it work when you squint?" I think it does, so I keep moving forward.

^ The atmospheric effect of the setting sun on the horizon here is ripped straight from a reference photo, and I think it works well. I did not have a plan for the mom&dad scene, though, so I let the low sun and the colours inspire my choices. I'm very pleased with the results. The mood is exactly what I was hoping for.

^ Here, the left panel is the original, including clouds that I added during the drawing stage, because I guess I thought they would add something. After I coloured it in, though, they were nagging at me. They didn't feel right. I had put my idea down on the testbed, and it was not working.

So I did a quick paint-over, and I think it's a big improvement. The wide-open sky makes our characters seem more lonely, more exposed. I guess while I was drawing I must have thought that all that empty sky looked too… empty? Too blank? The colour treatment activates that space and makes it meaningful though. I remind myself: often, less is more.

^ …Except, unfortunately, during the ballroom scenes, where I want it to look hot and busy and crowded, and I think my colours are making it too easy to read, too spacious, and I suspect that adding in more detail and sparkles and highlights will achieve that effect. In my reference photos of ballrooms, the overall feeling is of "glittering noise." These panels don't look noisy enough yet. I'll see how it looks when all the rendering is complete, and if it's still not feeling like a bustling sauna, I'll have to add something else in.

Until next week, if you need me I'll just be hanging out on this rock.

👋
TC