How not to draw a comic page
Sometimes, the sketch for a comic page has a certain flow to it that is hard to conserve when drawing the final page with clean lines and more details. It is a challenge that every comic artist faces once in a while, and sometimes even the best artists fail. However, it is usually not quite as bad as in the following example posted by the artist of Alex ze Pirate, Tom Preston.
If you check the news archive, you will see that I have never commented negatively about the work of a fellow cartoonist. But I am still puzzled how a professional artist can make so many bad decisions that turn a really good sketch into a mediocre comic page. One also has to think about all the time that was spent on redrawing various parts of the page. Since one can also learn from bad examples and there are lots of comic artists among our readers, I decided to post my observations here.
Here is my opinion about each panel of the final page:
- Panel 1: The boy’s pose looks much more dynamic in the sketch. Unlike in the finished page, he’s swinging the axe in a sensible way so that it has a considerable amount of momentum when hitting the trunk. In the finished page, the axe also seems unrealistically large.
- Panel 2: This panel should not have been added since it adds nothing to the story and rather slows down the action. It also takes away valuable space for the swing of the axe in panel 1.
- Panel 3: The composition of this panel is better in the sketch with the top of the trunk at 1/3 of the panel height and the center of the boy’s legs at 2/3 of the panel width. The different camera distance also adds a little visual variation.
- Panel 4 + 5: The second sketch is the best version. The progress from a larger to a smaller piece of wood is shown and the boy is pushing the knife with more strength, making the carving process look more natural.
- Panel 6: I like how the boy looks with pride at his finished creation in the sketch. The artist is thus connected with his creation in a concise way. It also works particularly well together with the next panel of the sketch.
- Panel 7: I like how the boy casually throws the created piece into the fire with an empty facial expression in the sketch. The contrast to the boy’s expression in the previous panel will certainly surprise the reader.
- Panel 8: The smile of the woman looks funnier in the sketch. Giving her such a sexy pose in the final artwork also distracts the reader from the punchline. Some people may see it differently, though.
The woman has a punchline?
Well, I looked up the site of that comic, which is http://alexzepirate.com/ but unfortunately, my McAfee virusscanner tells me it contains something bad.
See https://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/http://alexzepirate.com for the warning…
It says:
Aaaahhhh!! Nothing like a hot bath fueled by the effings of your enemies!
You’ve got some weird quirks, Alex.
This is a great synopsis here. As someone who has started a webcomic I can certainly say that I’ve made mistakes like this myself. In the sketch stage I think that our brain is a little more free flowing with creative juices and are not concerned with being perfect. When that translates to the final form it can loose that candid nature.
thx, for the very interesting analysis. Novil you are the writer, do you provide sketches for Powree and/or do you also draw for yourself? I am quite curious how you developed an “eye” for what is good and what is great. Did you learn from “your”/Powrees work or from other comics?
I noticed that sometimes I am just “blind” (“betriebsblind”) when it comes to my work until a certain amount of time is passed.
greetz
Bernhard
http://imgur.com/304UEbk
I’ll say I mostly agree with you, the first sketch is definitely the best, though I like some details in the other ones.
Panel 1 is definetly more dinamic with the swing of the axe and the fall of the tree in the first sketch than in the others that separet it in two panels. So panel 2 shouldn’t exist.
I like panel 3 the best in the second sketch giving more detail to the background and leaving the character in black somehow looks appealing without letting the character work dissmissed.
Panel 4+5 tottaly agree with you.
Panel 6 I like how pridefull the character looks in the first sketch, but also the close up to the finished effing, I would have prefer something mixed of both
Panel 7 agree, the blank face is like a mark of where is the joke, with the happy grin I just feel confused about what is happening
Panel 8 I don’t like the sexy pose of the final sketch it IS distracting, but I do like her face, it looks relaxed and is somehow funny that such a sadistic thing make her feel that way
dear powree, ive been following your comics since last year, i can proudly call myself a big fan of your work and a…good artist, in the way. i think you have a great point about your critic, but i believe no matter how you make a comic (i mean, the execution of the comic) if you feel confortable with the way you do it and it has a food final product you can do it, cause thats what is about right? making things they way you feel good while making it. (sorry if i dont speak well the language, if you think am wrong, please let me know)
I agree with you on every single point.
@ shado1313:
Powree is the artist, but Novil is the writer. This post was written by Novil.
WitzKaWumme wrote:
I don’t draw sketches myself. But I often redraw little details when I don’t like a detail in one of Powree’s sketches, most often mouths and eyes.
Looking at hundreds of sketches over the course of 5 years gives you a good amount of experience. I believe I always had a good eye for art. I mean that’s probably the third most important thing for a comic writer, after writing the dialog and the panel descriptions.
When you have to publish 4 pages a week, you must choose your redraw requests for whole panels wisely. I can’t ask Powree to redraw a panel if it’s just “good” and I see the potential for it to become “great”, unless it’s a very important panel. I only request redraws if there is something seriously wrong with it. That doesn’t even happen every 10 pages. Usually, little changes can already make a big impact, especially the way mouths are drawn in a comedy comic like Sandra and Woo.
@ Novil:
thx!!!
Urghh… Tom Preston.
@ Zero-ELEC:
What about him?
@ Hyperstar96:
Just stumbled on this today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHjpDDqAuc0
What’s very sad is that Mr. Dobson has now tried to claim that it’s “scientifically proven” that all finished work looks worse than a sketch, so he in fact did not do anything wrong in the above example. He even posted a journal telling everyone that all the evidence for his claim was in the book “Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing” by Margaret Livingstone.
The thing is, I own the book, and when I told him I couldn’t find anything within it that supported his claim, and asked for him to provide the page reference for the section that supported him in case I’d overlooked it, he couldn’t actually do so – apparently he doesn’t own the book at all? – and called me ignorant and arrogant.
Unbelievable.
@ Kallini:
I did some research, and I’ve seen a lot of people quote this passage (supposedly) from that book:
“The sketchiness of line art mimics the natural lack of clarity in our peripheral vision. When we look at the real world, our high definition fovea can only focus on a small area at a time. By having a very clean line art, it creates the unnatural feel of high clarity over a large area that’s not possible when we look at real life, therefore line art tends to appear stiff and not as appealing as the sketch. This sketchiness technique was first utilized by impressionists to create an optical illusion of motion (along with other techniques like equiluminance).”
Unfortunately, it seems to have only been reposted on Tumblr (MANY times on Tumblr, but still only that site) and though everyone says it’s from that book, I’ve yet to find a specific page number, and I don’t own the book itself. Maybe someone who does own it can see if that passage is there somewhere?