Comic Progress (and thoughts on lessons learned)

Alright, so I'm a few pages in on my first comic project, and I've already learned several important things. I figured I'd share some of these thoughts with you here so you can follow my progress.

First, I've learned that it's a good idea to use black wherever possible to contrast with the large spaces of pure white. This gives the pages weight, and a more punchy, finished feel. However, this can take a great deal of confidence, and is completely antithetical to my typical coloring process. In the last few pages I discovered that cell shading a surface area, AND adding black shadows mixes poorly. Doing this adds needless complexity in areas that aren't intended focal points. So it's either one or the other. Cell shading with a darker shade, or shading with larger areas of black and/or hatching (this is another area I have little experience with). Even if you use pure black in shaded areas you can still shade white areas with cell shaded gray, but it's a bad idea to add black shadows to these areas.

So far I feel that I have failed in being consistent with my comic in certain areas, but given that this project is an experiment and a chance to learn that's okay. I can already tell there are changes to the ways I'm handling shadows and it will likely continue to evolve as the comic goes on. Character's faces (especially Marvin's face) looks stylistically different to me in the recent pages than it did on page 1 and 2. Not because of his reactions, but it just feels like I've already moved into a different representation. Other faces feel like they vary more than I'd like from page to page, as keeping a character looking the same from different angles and with different expressions can be quite tricky. My hope is that the book doesn't look drastically different towards the end as it does in the beginning. Regardless, this is my chance to learn and to implement my findings so I can improve for future projects.

Lastly, juxtaposition. This is the basis for all storytelling and image composition in a comic. You have an idea of what will happen, and you may even have your story written, but how will you lay it out? It's come to my realization that this is an area of practice that could very well take my entire career to fully understand, as it's such a large area of study and experimentation. There are endless possibilities for each page, but how do you find the right one? I am struggling with finding the right kinds of transitions between certain actions too, but I suspect this will improve with more practice...

More speculation and findings to come in the near future. I hope you guys are enjoying it so far... and don't worry, the sexy scenes are coming...