writing exercise #2

so, our next assignment was to write another page of script, this time using a lot of new stuff that we learned in class: how to describe panel layout and format, verbally describing art direction and mood/tone, different visual cues, etc. and thusly, its a lot less dialog heavy than the first one. but a good step, i think.

--

[As continued after assignment 1, a few days later.]

1) [Establishing shot. A wide shot on a mostly deserted city street, made up of rows of dingy looking brownstone apartments and bodega style stores. Its early fall, heavily raining and cold. This top panel should be unframed and run the full width of the page, right to the edge. The background while they're out on the street should be fairly drab colors: blues, grays and browns. The few colors on the page should come from street lights, traffic lights, and neon store lights.]
[XX and XY are walking down the street, on the far right of the panel. XX is wearing a fully-buttoned jacket with the hood over her head. Her hands are held in her pockets with her shoulders shrugged tightly around her neck. She has a satchel style bag slung around her neck and shoulder. XY is wearing a scarf and jacket with the collar pulled up around his neck. He has a black umbrella held low in front of him with one hand obstructing his head and upper face from the reader and any prospective observers on the street.]

2) [They're both now walking towards the camera. XX is looking surly. The top of XY's face is still covered; you can see he's holding a small slip of paper with an address on it in his free hand.]
XX: I'm really glad you made me come to the far side of town in the freezing rain...
XX: ...AND you take my umbrella.
XY: Look. I really can't help that I have this extremely conspicuous branch sticking out of my forehead.

3) [From the side again. The door a few steps in front of him has the address that he's looking for scraped into the paint.]
XX: And I don't have any hats that could cover it. An umbrella was the only... (He stops himself when realizes he's right in front of the door he's looking for.)
XX: We're here...

4) [They're standing in front of the door next to each other; their backs to the reader.]
XY: I can't believe you're actually doing this.
XY: You scoffed when I told you to go to a doctor...
XY: ...but jumped at the opportunity to go to a some gypsy voodoo priestess.
XX: She's not a voodoo priestess...

[montage of small panels overlaying the main panel; all are views from inside the shop. The color palette should be much warmer, but still slightly dark.]
5a) [small square in upper left: Several small, irregularly shaped and sized bells jingle as the opening door hits them.]
5) [main panel: XX opening the door and walking in; pseudo-bird's eye view, as if looking down from the rafters.]
XX: (continued from last panel) ...She's a psychic.
5b) [small square along the bottom right: Jars of different shapes and sizes are up on a shelf on the wall; a series of cut jewels hangs from the shelf on strings.]
5c) [small square along the bottom right: Several brass scientific-looking instruments are on top of a console-style table with lots of tiny drawers on the front; a cat is asleep and partially hanging off the edge.]
5d) [small square along the bottom right: open books, news papers, and cards are strewn on top of an old wooden table; a cup of tea is sitting on the table near a chair, still steaming; there is a doorway behind the table with a fabric panel/curtain covering the opening.]

6) [Wide-angle panel, XX and XY (only shown from the shoulder up) are facing away from the reader, with their heads quickly spinning around to look the other way; both have expressions of apprehensive surprise.]
Voice (from off panel): Have a seat. Don't touch anything.
Voice (from off panel): ...damn kids...

--

ambur had some really good input that i need to name them... which i know is completely true. i have trouble writing and and keeping track of the xx/xy, let alone someone who is just reading it. but i think this is really a story that i want to continue writing (and drawing at some point), and i don't want to just slap names on them. i'd be afraid that they would get stuck in my head and wouldn't be able to see them as anything else. maybe i'll do some character studies (which i think we're learning about in class tonight) to flesh them out a bit more. maybe then some names will come to me. anyone have any suggestions?

writing exercise #1

so, i turned in my first homework assignment for my comic writing class tonight. in the first class last week we focused on script writing and how a comic script should be formatted. which resulted in the below 6-panel script. the idea for the story started out as just a picture i had in my head, we'll see if it ends up going anywhere.

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XX is in her early-to-mid twenties; a bit of a tomboy; medium height and build; she has medium length, straight dark hair with blunt bangs. XY is in his early-to-mid twenties; tall and slender; with medium length, tousled brown hair covering his forehead. They are roommates and have been friends since middle school. XY just awoke up to find a thin, foot long branch growing out of his forehead.

1) We open on them in mid-conversation; XY sitting up in his bed still under the covers. XX is sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed facing him, looking curiously at the branch. He is tenderly touching one of the sparse leaves growing off of it.
XX: So...
XX: ...you woke up, and it was just sticking out of your head?
XY: Its not sticking out. Its growing out.

2) She looks flippant and rolls her eyes.
XX: Yeah... sorry. GROWING.
XX: So, what the hell did you do last night that resulted in the sapling growing out of your head?

3) We now see XX face-on with the branch growing out at the viewer, going slightly out of focus.
XY: Its gonna sound retarded... but I had this dream...
XX (from off panel): ...here we go...

4) We see XX's black silhouette on a red background. His arms are outstretched, with his head split vertically from the crown down to mid-torso. Growing out of the split is a large full-grown tree with thick branches.
XX speaking in caption: It was so messed up. All I remember is having a headache that got worse and worse. And then my head felt like it just ripped apart and this HUGE tree just shot out of it...

5) She is flipping through a magazine, looking bored, not lifting her eyes while she speaks. He is still sitting on the bed looking up at the branch.
XY: ...I know there was more to it, I just can't remember.
XX: You know how boring it is to hear someone recount their dreams?
XY: Great. Thanks for the support...

6) She gets up, tossing the magazine on the on the bed as she leaves the room. He's scooted to the edge of the bed with his legs hanging off, ready to get up.
XY: Will you please leave so I can get dressed and figure out what the hell I'm going to do about this thing?
XX: Fine. You do have to give me some credit though...
XX (looking back with a smirk): ...I did avoid all of the the obvious "morning wood" jokes.

--

posting this actually makes me nervous. its odd for me to share something that i'm unsure of. i have no problem posting crappy sketches, but this, for some reason, feels different. hopefully that feeling goes away. my teacher will be reading it this week and returning it with comments. sort of anxious to see what he has to say...

gettin' my learn on

tuesday nights through october at the muse

Introduction to Writing Comics course description:
"Graphic novels, manga and comic books have become a major sector in the field of literature and a principal source of inspiration for other media. T Campbell presents a set of exercises designed to familiarize writers with this exciting and challenging form. We'll move from simple games like "fill in the word balloon" and word-balloon matching, to the basics of character design (for a visual medium) and page design (panel-count and other elements), to story breakdown (what happens on each page?) and script criticism, and end with one to three pages of full-fledged comics scriptwriting, reviewed in the class."

hopefully inspirational and entertaining.

playin' around

so my mom asked me to illustrate/draw each of her students to use for stuff in class. since there are 24 little rascals, i've been trying to find a quick and easy way to do it without drawing, scanning, tracing, coloring, etc. so i've been playing around tonight with tracing directly over an image with my wacom tablet.

its not exactly the look i had imagined for the kids, but its sorta neat, i guess. i used a photo i had taken a while back using the little camera on our mac. i didnt realize how much older i look with a beard...

the daily figure

i found this blog for artist/illustrator kyle t. webster today. he's doing a daily figure drawing, and they are freakin' awesome.

http://dailyfigure.blogspot.com/

next project

i've been sort of inspired by the elliotts' determination and stick-to-it-a-tiveness with their month-long art-a-thon. i had an idea for a little portrait series. sort of inspired by scott-c and nathan stapley (more based on subject matter than style, but i guess we'll have to see how they turn out when they're done). i started the backgrounds of 7 6"x6" canvases this past weekend (i'll post pics to those later this week), and honestyly, i wasn't totally sure what i was going to actually paint the portraits of until this week. famous stereotyped villains. i did some sketches at work...


















(sorry for the poor quality scan)

more cool design work

so we're doing a whole suite of print collateral for an accounting firm. each of the three designers in the office is doing a distinctly different direction to present to the client to choose from. mine has been deemed "most edgy". which means everyone in the office really likes it, but the client probably won't choose it...

cover:






















inner spreads (which for some reason, came out a different color when i saved it):
























edit: took out references to the company name... i guess you never know who looks at this stuff.

funnest day at work ever? possibly.

we expanded on the characters i came up with last week. we've got a new lady in the office who is a creative writer, AND she's hilarious. she came up with some bank-themed pick-up lines that each of them will be saying, as well as names and a personality profile. it was really a lot of fun and we had total creative freedom. it was a good day.


















if you're wondering what a bank-themed pick-up line could possibly be, think about complimenting someone's "bottom line" and ask to see their "portfolio".

roller derby poster

this came up in conversation last night, and i realized i should put it up here to share.

must... learn... Illustrator...

here's my second real try at using Illustrator. the cool thing is, this is actually for work!

from the brain of marketing genius, brendan ash...

brendan has been helping me to color-correct and resize images for a website we're doing for a brazilian steakhouse. needless to say, there are lots of pictures of meat. well, on the history page of the site, theres an image of brazil on an old globe. and thus, brendan says...

"thats boring. you know what would be way better? if you had a picture of a hot, topless brazilian woman with, like, a thong! a thong made out of meat! a bacon thong! with meat hanging off of it! and you could have a dog chasing after her!"

well, brendan, this is for you...


















*note: those may not have been brendan's exact words, but you get the gist...

feelin' giddy

so i acquired another one of scott campbell's prints... very excited. its called "igloo head and tree head" (see below) and features two characters for a comic that he did in flight: volume 4, which i also own. its weird, for someone who has been artistic my whole life, he's the first artist i've really latched on to and connected with since i wanted to be a comic book artist back in high school. back then, my biggest inspiration was joe madureria (although i still think hes good, you can see how drastically my tastes have changed).

i don't know what it is about scott's stuff... i think its the idea's behind what he does (which i admit is where my creative issues arise). i read an interview with him once, and he said he used to tape record conversations that people were having around him in restaurants and on the train and what not... i think thats awesome. and you can really see that a lot (more so in his comics than his art, but you get it).

i was just trying to think of where i first heard of scott, and i remember that he was the lead artist and character designer for the excellent game, Psychonauts... seriously one of the best (and funniest, which is rare) games that i've ever played. its about a psychic summer camp for kids where they're trained to use their powers, and ever level of the game actually takes place in the psyche of another character. Coach Oleander (the camp counselor/ex-military general) has a literal battlefield in his head; Milla Vodello (international secret agent and party girl) has a disco club in her head... all very clever and all very hilarious. i think i'm gonna have to dive back into that one sometime soon...

all done

at least i think it is now. i went through and tweaked some of the colors and added some pretty cool textures that sort of give it a whole different feel. i'm really pretty happy with it.







































i think the best part, though, was when i showed krystal the final product, she said how proud of me she was for stepping outside my box. i heart my wife.

update

so i finally got to pick back up with my work in progress. i've got two of the three "pieces" where i'm pretty happy with them. one last one to go. here's a shot where i've got the color done and have gone in adding texture.

sneak peek

for some reason i had the hardest time trying to figure out how to spell "sneak" and "peek"...

here's a little glimpse at "A Day in the Park" in progress. i ended up scanning it at work today to get a good digital copy. i did the lines (tried something new with the pressure on my tablet to get the wavy-ish lines. i'm trying my best to make it look like i outlined it with a real marker, and i think that helps. got a long way to go though.

musings on saturday night

so, i was thinking about my fearful folk art comparison, and the conclusion that i've come to is that almost any form of illustration could be compared to folk art. that makes me wonder if i need to categorize myself as an illustrator or an artist. is one better than the other?

funny mouth picture:










pink neon lights in a restaurant always set an interesting tone...

super post sunday: #1

so krystal and i decided last night that we would make today artsy fartsy day. so other than going to get groceries, today is all about art. i'm going to do some drawing and perhaps some painting. she's got a few paintings to finish. so it should be nice. i'm also going to take this chance to post a few things that i've got and just haven't done anything with.

so, for the first post, i've got the full version of the image in my blog header.













stay tuned for more...

sinkin' in the couch

so my new-found drive to do some daily art is working thus far. i've got something new AND i've got some sketches in the que to attempt to digitize. i really need to figure out what the deal is with my scanner, because if i have to keep taking my sketch book to work to scan, i foresee growing wearing of lugging it back and forth. or i'll forget it. but its working for now. i sketched this last night whilst krystal was snuggled in the couch reading a magazine.

slacking...

so another weekend came and passed, and i didn't pick up my sketchbook. no excuses, but i'm gonna start hardcore this week. no freelance work coming up. no other distractions (hopefully).

we did do some spring cleaning (even though i looked today and saw that spring is still 6 weeks away, which is sort of depressing). We have a hefty stack of things to drop off at a goodwill, which always makes you feel warm and fuzzy. and our closet is clean. also nice.

we went to a party on saturday night. brendan's brother-in-law turned 31 this weekend, and we were invited to join in on the festivities. we were both a little worried about there being too many degrees of separation between us and the person of honor (me -> brendon -> brendon's wife, rachel -> matt, rachel's brother, the birthday boy), but we got there, and there was no need for concern. everyone was extremely cool. i dont think i've felt that comfortable around that many people that i didnt know in a long time. probably since being back at school. i guess i don't really know what that means. does it mean i'm more comfortable with myself in meeting new people? does it mean we've finally found a group of like-minded people in this town that we can have fun with? probably a little bit of both. either way, its a good thing. we drank some beers (from a keg!), had some delicious homemade hot wings, did some boogie boarding down the stairs. oh! and there was a clown! it was hilarious! she made balloon animals. her name was cookie. and i think she was really worried when she came in and saw a bunch of drunk adults. probably a little outside her comfort zone. but hilarious none the less.

and so it begins...

well, this isn't the first time i've attempted to start blogging. but i'd really like to stick with it this time. this year, i made the first serious new year's resolution i've made in my entire life. try to draw an hour a night. doesn't sound like too big of a hassle. but here it is, 52 days later, and i've stuck to my resolution for maybe 10 days total. that's 19.2%. definitely an F in most books. but i'm going to go out on a limb and grade myself under some sort of montessori method. that makes me feel somewhat better.

my "big picture" goal with this resolution is to be a professional illustrator by the time i'm 30. i think that's reasonable. so, to sound cliche, i'm really only cheating myself by not sticking to it. i have taken a couple of freelance illustration jobs for cheap/nothing to stick to it. so that's cool. and i really want to get rolling on ambur's graphic novel. so i guess my ultimate goal with this blog is to post my drawings. not necessarily to share them, but to give myself mini-goals to work towards the big ones.

so check back to see what happens... it'll probably be a bit slow to start (my damn scanner isn't working for starters), but hopefully i'll get into a nice groove with it. and maybe i'll just ramble every once in a while too... thats always fun.

*side note: they just said "vaginal vault" on C.S.I.

*side note to the side note: on American Dad last night, Roger the Alien referred to a woman's vagina as a "baby cannon", which i thought was hilarious. that show is so under-rated.