Sunday 8 November 2020

Point of View

 Hello weary travellers. After your long week, I give to you...
















Page 14

I don't often go for these high 3/4 downshots that you see in the top and the bottom panels. When I see a panel in which all the Super Friends are sitting around a board room chatting, I think the artist did them for the reader and the drawing works like a floor plan, so reader knows where everyone is at all times and all camera angles.

It's a good idea, but I find this point of view / camera angle contrived. Not only do these drawings often lack drama, but how the heck would you get the camera up that high - wouldn't it be sitting somewhere above the ceiling?  Sure, we're drawing fiction and can draw anything from any angle, but I like to see the images drawn from as close to a human-eye perspective as possible, which means if you couldn't easily be in there with a camera, I don't want to draw it.  Another thing is that the  size of the rooms often look HUUUGE with HUUUGE desks or tables. This last thing is up to the artist to make everything look proportional.

But having said all that, I did the the first panel that way because I wanted to suggest a hot, barren landscape.  I didn't want the camera too high, but perhaps it could be a bit higher to push the emptiness, the alone-ness more.

And the last panel was done this way because I wanted to show the woman (HA!  That pilot was a woman! Hmm... now we're getting somewhere) splayed out across the busted fence panelling and the shadow "reaching" out toward her. I thought this angle would be dramatic, but also not put any emphasis or subjectivity on the person who found her.