Sunday 11 April 2021

Adding Drama While Keeping It Together

 Hello Faithful Reader(s) - you know who(se) you(s) are!

Today I've got a page for you, but a little more "behind the scenes" stuff. Don't get too excited, because, well, it's just a panel I dropped, but still!  OOOH, behind the scenes stuff!  OOH!

















Page 42

OK, this page turned out pretty well and it's a nice break from camera angles outside the jets to right inside a cockpit as seen in the first panel. I think it is dynamic and especially helped by making the panel dividers on diagonals and tilting the camera view a bit.

I like how the 2nd divider angle is less sharp, which (I think) helps suggest some return to normalcy between the 2nd and 3rd panels.  

I hope the action on the 2nd panel is clear - that the jets just missed each other. I could have drawn them closer together just as they pass one another.  Perhaps I should go back and do that - yes, if I ever go back and work on this thing in a more finished way, bla bla bla.

Adjusting the proximity of the planes in the 2nd panel might also help the 3rd panel in that it would look less similar than they do at present.

Ah, but let's talk about that behind the scenes stuff that I mentioned at the start.






This panel was initially the first panel on the page - it is quite like the current 2nd panel on the page above and it skips over the near-collision and kills the drama. We need to see that "OH NO, they're too close" moment, and I think it worked best to show it in a more "first person" way. 

So, this again speaks to my preference for drawing in crappy lined paper books - I can add, change, remove panels pretty easily while still keeping the story together and orderly. These books make it easy to go back in a previous scribbler and see what happened or review a design.  Also, those printed blue lines - yes they look pretty bad in this rough form, really help me control and manage the pages and panels. I guess I find it funny that I need and want some containment on the story pages to keep it manageable.  Ha!