Chapter Two Colour Script Refinements, and: other comics!

On the one hand, people say "done is better than perfect," meaning that getting anything to any sort of finished state is better than pursuing perfection. But on the other hand, I promised myself at the start of this project to not to let myself be too free with the feeling of "good enough." I've written about this in previous posts, and the TL;DR is that being in too much of a rush and letting deadline pressure affect me too much made me exhausted and miserable during the making of DD3. I want PDAP (this book) to be sustainable and high-quality, so, in this specific case, I gave myself an extra day to fix up some colour script panels that I wasn't happy with, even though every nerve in my body was gnawing at me, saying "move on to flatting! Get going!"

This is one of the first images we see in the chapter, so I wanted it to be striking:

My first pass was too drab, too muddy (hi Sarah!), and there was not much sense of depth. So I made the lighting more dramatic, simulated some haze that I saw in a reference photo, pumped up the colour, and sacrificed a little contrast in the foreground. The new version looks a little "rainbow-y" to me, and I do want it to have a bit more of a muted feeling, but it's an improvement.

This next one is a case where I think I just rushed my first attempt:

I studied my reference photos to get a better sense of the rock colouration and the way the shadowing affects it, and I think the results are a big improvement. That foreground rock in the bottom right needs a bit more contrast to bring it forward though.

Then there's this guy:

I… still don't think it's doing what I want it to. I also don't like adding in "special effects" like the light bloom in the bottom right corner. It works to create the effect I want, but I would prefer if I could achieve that without using something that looks "Photoshoppy" to me.

For this set of panels, I didn't have a value thumbnail to work from, because I had improvised the page at the "pencilling" stage:

(If you're looking for differences, note that the first panel in the set is the same.) In the bottom-left panel, my initial attempt looks muddy to me. Here's something weird: in version two, I think the imagery is less clear—the silhouettes of both DD and the boy read more slowly—but the overall effect is better. Some of this may be due to rendering; I think the addition of the dappled light and the representation of the light bouncing from the ground improves the feel.
In the middle panel, I just wanted DD's silhouette to read more clearly. I don't know why I'm happier with this panel being more clear, but the previous one being more obscure. This meant dropping a Photoshoppy tint over the background, but I like that it makes her pose more clear (and makes the setting feel hotter).
In the last panel, I think better colour choices and adding more rendering to the goats made me feel better about it.
These three panels suggest to me the old maxim, "Fools and bairns should never see half‐done work." I don't know what a "bairn" is (I always heard it as "fools and children") but in this case, even though I'm of the opinion that it should be possible to slap down some basic elements and feel informed about the colour choices, I think adding a little rendering to each panel helped me get to a better place. I'm always wary of overworking something, but sometimes you also just have to push a little further to complete the image, to drop the last little puzzle piece in place.

This one is similar…

Spending a little more time making rendering choices helped me feel better about it. The first pass feels slapped-together. In fairness, I think working with a neutral-coloured environment feels trickier than working with bold colours. But also I think this one just needed a little more time and patience. When I do the final, I'll probably work to create more of a separation between the foreground objects and the middle ground.

I'm glad I took the time to revisit all those colour sketches! I feel much more confident that we're all getting a better-looking book for it.

TIME FOR MORE GREEN BARS

I started flatting this week. Is this bar very impressive? Admittedly: no. BUT! It'll go by pretty quickly. (A brief reminder: "flatting" is one name for a digital process where you go in and isolate the different parts of an image, like using masking fluid for a watercolour painting. It makes it 1,000,000 times easier to colour the page.)

WHEN IT RAINS (BOOKS) IT POURS (BOOKS)

I have a lot of comics on my bedside table these days!

First, NUIT COULEUR LARME, by Borja González. It's been a while since I picked up a foreign-language comic just for the art, since I did make a rule that I would stop doing that, and I haven't been to any conventions lately (where that sort of purchase usually happens). So I'm overdue for a lapse.

I don't really know what it's about (I can kind-of read French, but in the specific case of this book, I'm missing a lot), I just really like the look of it. I'm a big sucker for that straight-ahead, flat type of composition. And (perhaps despite) its flat, no-faces presentation, it has a lot of charm.

In order to get free shipping on that book, I also bought Tome One of Matthieu Bonhomme's ESTEBAN, based solely on word of mouth.

I have to admit: I am still working toward understanding why people speak so rapturously about Bonhomme's work, but I am not going to be a naysayer. I can see: it is extremely solid. I'm going to look more closely.

I backed Linnea Sterte's A FROG IN THE FALL Kickstarter, and that just arrived.

I'm about half way through. You cannot argue with the appeal of that little frog dude. The whole book is very quiet, and some of the two-page spreads are just plain relaxing to spend time with. (I think the book might still be available through the store of PEOW, its publisher.)

And then I stumbled upon this in the library yesterday: Emily Carroll's WHEN I ARRIVED AT THE CASTLE. I thought I had read it already. I had not.

We all know Emily is amazing at creepy horror, but read this book if you want to see her do both jump scares (in a comic!) and subtle, unsettling creepy stuff, right next to each other. There are elements of this book which I feel comfortable calling "genius." Just, uh, come prepared for some intense body horror.

This is great! I like being able to share exciting comic books with you all!

Hands up if you cannot see the surface of your bedside table for all the books on it,

TC