Daily Prompts: Part 1

"and then there were four..."

Ugh. YET AGAIN I have been absent for OVER A MONTH. No excuses, but:
I am officially making it a goal to update this blog a little more frequently than once-a-month-ish. It will tie nicely into my resolution to make more art more frequently! :)

I am still very much on a watercolor kick, and very much in my 'blue period'. Out of consideration for you folks (for being so patient and obliging!), I decided to break it up a bit and spent a few minutes tossing some quick color on the above sketch. I realize: not everyone is as in-love with Prussian Blue as I am (But. Guys. I am so. SO in love with Prussian Blue watercolor), and it might be nice to break up the monochrome.

Because I'd bet money that most of you don't watch this blog because of my monochromatic doodling- that you'd like to see some more finished looking work. Many of you may be getting a little impatient with all this scrawly sketchwork. I feel a (perhaps bizarre, perhaps unnecessary) need to make excuses for myself- this is something I need to do for me.

If you love this style of work, then please forgive me for not giving you the benefit of the doubt- you have much more broad and evolved tastes than I give you credit for! :)

I've said it often to myself and it's come up more than once in conversation: I don't much care if my color is pretty, my rendering is slick and my styling is confident- if my ideas aren't compelling/sincere/arresting, then it's all for naught. I spend all day at work doing very precise, 'rendered' drawings and sculptures- and I've found that I have been really craving to do...not-that!
I'm slowly realizing that, while technical skill has its place, in the end my joy in making art doesn't come from those things. I don't want to spend my life trying to render more precisely or paint like a renaissance master. Comparing myself to my peers in that regard is pretty dispiriting- I am by far not the best painter...and I think I don't want to spend time trying to be. And that is SO freeing :)

What gets me most excited is the dreaming- the conceiving, sketching, thinking and storytelling. I am more and more in love with work that shows the heart of the artist, and less and less in love with work that is technically excellent but empty. It's not a new thought, by any means, but it's taken on new meaning for me.

Perhaps it's more simply said this way: I am more inspired, my life is more enriched, by seeing a beautiful idea than by seeing a beautifully rendered bicep.

< / rant >

SO: to that end a friend of mine consented to give me a little homework. Each day for a few days at a time I would open a sealed envelope with a new prompt in it. Just a sentence or a word, and that day I would respond visually in some way or another.
What you'll see is pretty raw and unpolished. And I would say a lot of it is pretty boring and some of it fails completely. But I think it's probably more useful and interesting if I post them indiscriminately- I'm going to make a lot of mediocre work if I'm going to make good work. And I think there's something to be said for posting bad work as well as good.

Day 1:
"and then there were four..."

The first day is still one of my favorites, but it was a struggle from start to finish. I've found the more narrative/sentence-long prompts tend to inspire me more, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule. Day 1 I had a little idea, and I decided: "I'll make this a short little one-page comic! if it's sketchy and quick it won't take long and it'll be fun". So, I leapt right into trying to come up with characters and panels and assumed it would go quicker because of the style it was in. SO WRONG. I ended up having a mini panic attack and falling asleep early. True story.

The second image was to be the final panel in the comic, and it's the original idea, essentially. I still like it, and I thought about finishing the comic later but decided against it- I think it's more honest this way. Fact: sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, stress myself out, and become paralyzed. Comics are hard and style has nothing to do with why.

Day 2:
"warm"

Day 2: chill out and breathe. Keep it simple. Something easy and, in the end, kind of 'meh'. They can't all be interesting :/

Day 3:
"the moment he knew"

lol. Hard to explain this first response- so I did a for-real one.

The final response I liked a lot, but it has little to do with the actual prompt. I had been thinking about this idea for Jellybots- herds of buildings migrating across the plains...


Day 4:
"...and that's when I stopped believing in gravity."

My first reaction to the prompt was a bit...obvious, I thought. And not particularly good. My first instinct is not often my best one (which is actually a really great lesson across all of these...often I had to do a little soul-searching and thinking to get to a result I was excited about- apparently it's not enough for me to just lash out on intuition alone), so I gave this one another quick shot...

ahhh...that's better. "...and a number of other things, for that matter."

Just because I had to think a little harder didn't mean the result would necessarily be more...intellectual. Perhaps 'thinking' is the wrong word- maybe it's that I had to stop 'thinking' about the prompt and start 'feeling' about it. That rings truer.

That pretty much wraps it up for my first session of prompts. I had a lot of fun when I wasn't panicking, so I asked her to do it again! I made a weekend trip to Seattle last week and took a few prompts with me! I'll post the results of those next (but I figure it might be less overwhelming if I break up the posts) :)

Bonus sketch! I am fond of the cut of this fellow's jib! Not to mention his Banjolele :)
If intrigued, please click.

Anyways, maybe this was an interesting look into how I think? Maybe it was a self-indulgent post full of introspection and meaningless doodling? Either way, I'm going to do it again until somebody stops me!

May the staggering beauty of what God has made give you pause and fill your heart up!

-n

Loosening Up

In which I draw collars and shawls, just like always.

Hi guys! I've been meaning to get back on and post for a few weeks now...I just haven't had the necessary combination of free-time/internet access in which to do it.

But it's a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I find myself in the (rare-ish) position of having a little time to myself. SO HI. Long-time-no-monologue!

The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster. And on a day like today, when my plans and to-do lists suddenly run out and leave me sitting here trying to occupy myself, it's important to remind myself that this is what I've been telling myself I've wanted all month :p
Actually, it's funny- reading the start of my last post...it starts off with a similar sentiment. I guess I only blog when I'm feeling the need for a pajamas-and-tv day.

I don't have much in the way of 'profound' thought to offer today. But I DO have an enormous backlog of sketches I thought I'd share. Some of these I'm more pleased with than others, but part of the exercise of loosening up is letting go...so rather than edit it down, I'm just going to post everything in a big bundle and move on :)

The encouraging lesson from watercolor is just that: move on.

Like ink, it can be an intimidating and unforgiving medium to approach. It's permanent and it doesn't like to be reworked. But it's as much a blessing as it is a curse: overlaboured watercolor looks awful! so you can't noodle on it. You actually HAVE to relax and get loose.

So I've been a lot more stream-of-consciousness about my sketchbooking recently...and it's so liberating! I find I am more excited about taking on art projects and doing little favors for people, because it's not the intimidating prospect it was before. I don't have to commit to pencils, inks, scanning and hours of color when I consider whether to do something or not; I can lay something down quick and be satisfied if only with the beautiful textures that the paint makes that have nothing to do with me. (Like that knee in the above drawing. It makes me SO happy. And I had, like, nothing to do with it...it's just pretty paint.)

Enough about that! I think it's time I shut up a bit and showed some of the work I've been blabbing about.
A couple weeks back I went on a road-trip to see my family in Michigan. From here that means a 12 hour car ride. It's one I've made many times in my life...but it's always a new challenge to keep myself engaged for the entire trip. Luckily, this time I didn't have to do much of the driving...and I thought "why not, if I want to get all loosey-goosey, paint in the car? I mean, besides nausea." SO I DID! And I totally didn't throw up! It's not so bad if you keep your water in a water-bottle and use paint right out of the top of the tube :p
The next few pages are doodles from the car on the way up:

When I arrived in Michigan, I got to spend some much-belated time with my Grandparents. Particularly with my Grandpa, who suffers from MS and has been bound to a wheel chair as long as I can remember. Initially it was hard to see my grandparents and observe as they've grown older within the small rooms of their home. But as I was there, I was struck by how loved and cared for they are. It amazed me how full a life can be if even a few people love you. Despite his health and complications relating to his MS, my grandfather remains a canny and delightful man...it was amazing to hear him talk. And as we were talking, I got to paint him.

Along the way in the car, there and back, I took come quick visual notes from observation of the landscape we were passing by. It's really interesting how I can more clearly remember the trip because I sketched it- even if I sketched it poorly. For whatever reason (I have a variety of theories that would comprise a whole new paragraph), watercolor makes me want to draw from life a lot more.

When back in Providence, I joined a few co-workers and went out to life-drawing (something I haven't done in a few years!) and It was good fun...It was a good excuse to take the paints on the road again.

I spent some time with a friend and professor, and after a while we both decided to bust out our sketch materials and just jam quietly between topics. It was great! It's something that is extremely difficult to do with a cintiq :p

Some of these I want to take into photoshop and color (like the self portrait from last post) when I get a little more time, I think that's the next step...see if I can't find a way to bridge the gap between both worlds.

I think that's it for now! Hopefully I won't go so long between posts next time. But it's nice to have art to share (I hope you guys like this sketchy stuff! I mean, I'mma probably do it anyways, but...) Thanks again for reading! Your feedback is valuable and encouraging! :D

Until next time!
Much love,

-n

"What Now?"

Self Portait of The Artist as a Hairy Man

Phew! I'm not sure where to begin. As usual, I kind of disappeared into my cave for a while. I've been meaning to get back on here and post. I just don't like to if I don't have anything to show you guys. And, frankly, I've been in a rut.

To be honest, since the comic for Flight I haven't been doing all that much personal work. Actually- alright, there was a rash of Jellybots designs that kept me occupied for a bit. Fair enough. But specifically these last few weeks after returning from San Diego Comic Con, I've been feeling pretty bone-dry, creatively.

I suppose I should start there: SDCC was pretty incredible. I think the most fitting word is "Intense". In every sense of the word. It's such a manic time full of rapid-fire events and meetings both wonderful and exhausting. I returned to Rhode Island very much in need of a nap and a homecooked meal...and some non-threatening cartoons...and my teddy-bear blanket. Bon Iver has been helping me recuperate ^___^

A special thanks must go out for those of you who read this blog that came up and said "hi". It was SO encouraging to meet you guys in real life! Nice to know this isn't all going out into the aether completely unattended.
It was such an amazing experience to sit at the booth with the other Flight artists, meet them face-to-face (pairing each face with the work I knew and loved was really fun and enlightening!), and sign books. Very humbling to stand next to some of my heroes.
Anyways, I came back with new friends, some great new books, and a lot to think about!
One thought in particular: Everyone kept asking me what the "next step" is...where is this all going?

"What Now?"

Heck if I know! If anyone has any experience with that question, you probably know it can be one of the most paralyzing. I seized up a bit.

Part of the paralysis has to do with process, and some of it is just listlessness and emotional baggage. I've felt pressure from myself to decide: should you start work on a book? What is Jellybots going to be? Why isn't that done yet? How are you going to follow this up? Do you really feel like working, with no deadline? Do you really feel like sitting down at the Cintiq and forcing your way through all the limitless possibilities of a blank, digital page? Why? Just to prove to everyone that you can? Ew.

I wanted to follow up my last few "On Process" posts with a third one: A treatise on "Faith and Art". An exploration of how my faith intersects and drives my art. Honestly? I don't think I'm up to it tonight. That seems a bit grandiose...too ambitious for one blog entry? (that, itself, was paralyzing :p I'm a mess!)
But here's what I do have to offer on the topic, just today:
My sketchbook and my prayer-journal used to be two books, now they are one. Which means, lately, there have been pages and pages of frantic text and barely a sketch between paragraphs. I just haven't felt up to it. But yesterday morning my prayer time became my art time. Often I find my prayers bleeding into writing...playing with story ideas and themes, but this time it was sketching. You ever wonder why people sing in church? The sunday-school answer is: "to praise God". But isn't that sort of arbitrary? Why music? Why not dance? For that matter: why not drawing? writing? story? color? Really: why not?
Anyways, my time praying segued right into a sudden inspiration that came out of nowhere: I picked up my watercolors for the first time in 2 1/2 years. It was...a thrill. As a result: all the sketches above and below have been generated since yesterday. I feel like a real artist again. Artist block: broken. Praise God. Really.

I've been trying to let go of the things that I always do. Sometimes when I think of making art I get too intimidated by the process; before I even start I know how much rendering It's going to take to get the digital piece to look good. Honestly: I am sick of rendering. I have been so jealous for years of people who are just...loose. Gestural. Notably an early obsession with Dave McKean, and a growing appreciation for Hayao Miyazaki's storyboard work.
I have always loved the sort of things watercolor does in seconds without you even trying. The sort of textures and effortless gesture you can't get in digital if you spend hours. That sense of ease.
Jellybots was a step in that direction: a move towards simplicity. But this was another step.

And it seems like the right time; after a talk with Kostas Kiriakaikis at SDCC, a few years of telling myself "I miss watercolor", watching my friend Elise sketch in fountain pen without reaching for ctrl-z, jealously eyeing Cory Godbey's work, and finally purchasing Enrico Casarosa's "The Venice Chronicles", I was poised to move.

I'm finally realizing it's, like, a THING I am allowed to DO...to just sketch loosely and let go. To stop assuming that my lines have to be immaculate and clean for them to be worth looking at.

But it took a nudge in prayer...without which I would have remained exactly as afraid of change and flexibility as I have always been. And, to paraphrase Chariots of Fire, "when I draw, I feel his pleasure" ^___^

SO: what next? who the heck knows. I sure don't. But that's ok. I'll keep drawing if you'll keep reading, deal? I hope you like watercolor! :p

Well, THAT was wordy and introspective. Blog therapy. UGH: this is my blog-where-I-ruin-the-magic-of-things-by-talking-them-to-death. You guys just ready for me to shut up and post some art? I'm ready to shut up and post some art.

Sam Hounder. The latest iteration of the character who may-or-may-not be a Dog in a story that will-likely-not-still-be-called Wanderhome. I am...fond of him.

(above) Waterfire in Providence: it's for snuggling.

Today, inspired by Enrico Casarosa, I went on a sketch-trip to Bristol, RI with some friends. I brought my watercolors along and felt properly artsy. We ate fresh sweet-corn from a roadside vegetable stand (illustrated below. God, I love roadside vegetable stands), wandered through a graveyard, and sat by the water as my friend played the bagpipes. U JELLY?

We snuck into this mansion, and were eventually caught when the old-ladies who give the tours realized we didn't have stickers. :D

I got DEVOURED by mosquitoes while painting this lake. And the paper got rained on. Worth it.

A moment in the graveyard, and the roadside veggie stand complete with colorful attendants. This painting, and our youthful charms, won us some free tomatoes. It was a good day.

Oh, right...and also, I drew this kid. (below) He's kind of a big deal. I also made my own watermark. I know, I know...you're impressed. :P

And that's the show for today, folks. I am honored that you have read this entry at all. I hope it has been in some way edifying. (Speaking of edifying, if you haven't seen BBC's Sherlock THEN YOU SHOULD MAYBE SERIOUSLY CONSIDER IT. I haven't geeked out about anything as much as I have about Sherlock in a while. It's- augh. It's good.)

Alright, it's late. I'm outta here. Thanks for reading.

Be blessed!

-n

San Diego COMIC CON!!!

Who has two thumbs and is going to San Diego Comic Con tomorrow?
I'M A HUFFLEPUFF.

It's kind of a joke, see...based on that video...see? it's funny, right? ugh. That's all besides the point because-
I AM GOING TO SDCC!

My home-base will be at the Flight Booth (#2235), so PLEASE stop by if you're there. I'd love to meet any/all of you if you're at the con.

I'll be selling prints of some my work as well as helping to promote Flight, Volume 8! Please come buy things I neeed moneyyy for comicccssss...
But seriously, if you don't have monies I'd just generally like to meet you if you're around ^____^

Sorry I've gone a bit silent suddenly...I have more art and will have PLENTY more to say once I come back from the Con, but for the time being prepping for SDCC has eaten up my life.
I am so excited. I don't think I have ever been packed this far in advance for anything...watch me STILL forget my phone-charger. AUGH.

Hope to see you there!

Much love,

-n

The Hollow Men: On Character Design

So by now some of you may have actually read Flight Volume 8, which is neat! I was right, wasn't I? You enjoyed yourself. Toldja so.

I finally got my own hands on a copy, and had a wonderful time re-reading everyone else's stories. There are so many phenomenal storytellers with such distinct styles represented in this final volume...I think as a whole it really lives up to and exceeds Flight's high standards.

For my own part in it, it was really surreal to hold a copy in my hands. Like any artist, I feel a certain amount of anxiety seeing my own work all published and done. I vacillate quickly between that sensation that "it could be better!" and a general giddiness that it's actually done.

I think, with whatever perspective I can have right now on the whole experience, I feel content.

I am also itching to start working on something new! I've got a few projects that linger perpetually on the backburner...maybe it's time for one of those to take shape and start developing? Jellybots? Something else? Time will tell.

I mentioned last post that I wanted to talk about some of the character design process that went into Hollow Men...so I figured I'd give that a shot. If you haven't read the story yet...you probably should do so before you read the rest of this post, lest I spoil it for you :p

________

On Process II, Character Design:

When I start something...or at least when I started this...I think non-linearly. Not just visually, but in moments, emotions, color, symbols, etc. A random stream of things that jumble together, and ultimately become the final story...or they don't, and they sit around my attic of ideas and gather dust :p

I work full-time as a character designer for a video-game company, so naturally much of the miasma of my thoughts includes character design.
Just like with Story, it can be tempting to get caught up in the bits and baubles of character design. For me, I like to add hooks...little adjectives you can add to a design that give the viewer something to think about...some visual and conceptual handle that stops the eye and the mind and keeps you looking. I think that's vital to all really captivating character design...but the very best designs (it seems to me) don't just resort to gimmicky hooks to grab your attention...there's a deeper element of design that's beyond all that...and I think it has to do with sincerity.

It's that thing that, however 'uncool' or just weird the idea is, you just can't shake. Anyone can put more and more spikes, horns, wings, or whatever on a character...but that deep sincerity is what can make one drawing mysteriously captivating. It's literally one of the hardest things in the world to articulate (so if you don't know what on earth I'm going on about, I don't blame you) because it's a design thing, not a words thing.

So I'll stop talking theory and talk practically:

A boy paddles a canoe down a silent river in the forest, there are serpents in the water.

That means there is a boy and there are serpents. Obvious, I know. But to me...even in that simple sentence, those are specific people (er...and serpents that are also...kind of...people?). So the process of designing them is the process of trying to figure out how to visually develop the image you see in your minds' eye without losing their unique identity along the way. That means making decisions all along the way to ignore 'cooler' ideas that may occur in favor of 'honest' ones. Make sense?

It's like naming someone. Some names will fit and others won't, because there is already a someone to name. You can't go deciding that 'Peter's' new name is 'Optimus' when it clearly could never be. It just doesn't feel right. It won't stick. Optimus is a cool name, but not for a Peter.

The main characters in The Hollow Men are Jehan (the prince, though you wouldn't know it because his name is never mentioned) and the Hollow Men themselves. The first thing I knew about Jehan was that he had tattoos of hands on his shoulders.

There's something profound to me about the idea of a tattoo...and moreso the idea that that permanent mark could represent the impact of another person...it could stand for kinship...that fealty could be expressed as a kind of permanent embrace. It just worked for me, emotionally, as a symbol. Of love, legacy, whatever...again it's a felt thing, not a words thing for me. So hands became a very important theme in The Hollow Men...which drove the story and some of the decisions I made in terms of how to compose certain frames and play certain moments.

It followed in the soup of my ideas that the hands had to do with his father. That there would be a scene late in the story where we would understand what they meant. And the image of black hands with long, slick talons came to my mind...violating that space. That's literally how it went. That was the second 'moment' that I knew had to occur for me to be satisfied. So the character design became integrated with the story itself and they helped drive eachother.

Then there were the Hollow Men themselves. MUCH more tempting to push further and further away. I knew the serpents in the water would be white. I knew the kind of personality I wanted and I knew there would be two of them with only one consciousness between them.

There was an idea I'd had, which I still like, that they would sort of...unzipper down the middle. They would twist and wind in and out of eachother (doodled above). That's the conceptual origin of the black line that bisects them. But because it pulled too much focus away from the narrative, I decided against it.

They were kind of a meditation on loneliness, I suppose? The thought of being completely alone in a crowd...the pair of them are only one thing, and that one thing is barely a thing at all...just an idea of hunger. A void always wants to be filled. To me, that is the essence of how it is to be alone.

There's more I could say, but I think I'll ruin it if I talk too explicitly about it all...I want to let you into the process, but not completely draw back the curtain and show you how the trick works (if it does) :)

I've talked a lot about preserving that initial idea, and I think it bears saying: pinning down and keeping inspiration can be an impossible thing. Like, literally. Impossible.

It's been the biggest struggle and the source of some of the biggest lessons for me. As an artist, you're constantly aware that once you lose that passion, it all falls apart...you can only do your best to tread water. Maybe your dogged commitment will see you all the way to the end if you just grit your teeth and bear it. It's never really worked that way for me...you only get so far white-knuckling it before your strength gives out.

Like many things in life, I am so dependent on something that is so beyond my control: "Inspiration".

Who said I'd even have an idea to begin with, or that it would be a good one? After I start, what happens when the passion abandons me? I never finish. So often I feel like I don't have an idea worth preserving. When that happens, why start at all?

This could be a whole new post, but I make passing references to my faith and my praying a lot in this blog. I don't want to alienate anyone, but by the same token I don't want to shy from being candid:

A huge part of the art process is surrender. Giving up. And that is a huge part of prayer for me as well. I always wondered: how on earth does my faith have anything to do with my artwork? I found some new things out about that during the process of making this comic.
In art, as soon as you start to seize down on something, you overwork it. You kill the sketch...the pose turns out wooden and stiff. So I panic pretty consistently throughout the process. I second-guess myself and freak out. That's why I pray. And that's just one of the ways my faith has collided with my work. Not in some high-minded spiritualized sense, but in an even more 'practical' way than chasing emotions and trying to pin down dreams. Giving control over to something as 'abstract' as God makes a lot more sense when I realize I give control over something as abstract and fleeting as 'inspiration'. All. The. Time.

Phillipians 4 springs to mind.

Maybe more on that later? Just a thought for now.

Thanks SO much for reading. I hope you still do. A full several-page preview should be up of all the comics in volume 8 on the flight website soon. In the meantime, you can tide yourselves over with some similar posts from the other phenomenal contributors:

Corey Godbey
Katie Shanahan
Scott C
Jake Parker
Der-Shing Helmer
Tony Cliff

Sonny Liew
Kostas Kiriakis

Kyla Vanderklugt

JP Ahonen

Much love,

-n

Flight 8 is out TODAY.

Click Here To Order Flight Volume 8 On Amazon.

Today.
Today is the day. This is going to be a good, long post. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of pictures!
To start: above is the final, full color version of Page 1 of my story "The Hollow Men" in Flight Volume 8.

I don't know what else to say, except that I'm SO excited that the book has finally hit shelves. I hope you'll buy a copy and support the last hurrah of this series. I can't emphasize enough how many great stories by other great artists there are in this volume. For all of us, this is bittersweet. For the veterans, this is the curtain falling on years of work and companionship. For me it is the strange feeling of having to say 'hello' and 'goodbye' at once.

Over the last few posts you've seen how this page has come from sketch to thumbnail, to black and white, and now to final. As the work progresses to final I have less and less to say about it. I hope the final story speaks for itself. And I really, really hope you enjoy it. The hope that something that I've done might mean something to someone is most of the reason I do this in the first place.

A friend of mine (who got her copy before I've gotten mine!) sent me this photo yesterday, and (I'll own up to it) I teared up. It's real. I can't believe it:

I could play this off like I'm too-cool-for-school, but really...why bother? You only get one first, you know? Today I just feel so thankful. You all know who you are, and you get a shout-out in the book...so I won't belabour the point. But, thank you...really and truly.

________

On Process:

Based on the response from the last few posts, it seemed there might be some interest in looking more deeply into the process of how I work...or how I worked on Hollow Men. So I'm going to indulge and show you guys how this really, truly starts.

Below are some scanned pages from a little moleskine notebook I put to use when it came time to plan out this project. Blurred text is because I use my sketchbooks as prayer-journals and I was expressing the full-extent of my panic to an embarrassing degree :p

The rest is the frantic note-taking and shorthand I use when I don't expect to be showing anyone what I've been working on. I didn't proof read this, so you get to see all the mess I make before I settle on a direction.

At the beginning I was asked "what story do you want to tell?"
So, naturally, I panicked. I pulled out all the half-baked, partially complete stories and character designs I'd been sitting on and summarily dismissed them all. It didn't feel like time for any of them. So on an idle thursday in November, I took my anxiety for a drive and prayed for an idea.
A little daydream crept back in. It had originally occurred to me a year before when I was riding my bike through the forest around my aunt and uncle's home;

A boy paddles a canoe down a silent river in the woods, there are serpents in the water.

That was it. A story started to grow up around it. I think in moments, bits of color, visuals and emotions. The feeling of it washed over me and I pulled over the car to take notes.
That's how this mess always starts.

I should also mention that working on something this large (I've only ever done, at most, a 7-page comic before) and this important to me was a new experience. Much of the process was just any panicked attempt to wrangle this together.

I immediately started to sketch characters and play with themes. Before I got to the layout phase, I was burning through pages of sketchbook jotting notes...little designs, themes, ideas. Occuring, iterating, and discarding. I'll show you some of that later.

I sketched and jotted and eventually wrote a script. When I was finished with that I decided the script was too confining, and the problem was it wasn't true to my process: I was thinking in simultaneous visuals and bits of dialogue, not pages of text. I had to start thumbnailing or I was going to lose this thing.

So I accidentally came across a method that really worked for me. When I thumbnail I HAVE to keep it small and messy. If I get too big, I get intimidated by the size and start to feel like I have to render out characters. Nothing is more poisonous to getting thumbnails done well than a preoccupation with rendering characters or scenes. At this point, beyond the basic concept, they aren't the point. This is about story, speed, flow...pace. Bringing the reader through your narrative in a way that makes sense, doesn't confuse, and (in layout alone) makes them feel the story. That's about light, dark, composition, panel placement and size...not so much pose and facial expression. This is bullet point time. No sentences allowed.
The crux of this (for me) is trying to think through these things symbolically. Moving the reader through intense moments at a quick pace, slowing them for a beat with a large panel. If the character is feeling overwhelmed: overwhelm him with composition. If you want to feel the physicality and tension of each limb...get close in and claustrophobic. There's no rule here...I had to feel my way through it. But it is, without a doubt, my FAVORITE part of making comics. No other medium works quite the same way.
I had to iterate quickly and keep it sketchy. If I went digital I would noodle. And I needed some way to experience the flow from page to page. So I found a small moleskine I had around and didn't have a use for (it was so tiny...who uses that?) :p and the idea of sticky-notes occurred. With the moleskine I could dedicate each small page to a corresponding page of the comic. And with sticky notes I could stack, remove, move around panels and pages.

So that's what I did! And it totally worked for me. So below are a few scans of what I think are the first eleven pages of planning. It's still the truest form of the comic. After that I had to tidy up come thumbnails for approval. After that point the process is almost automatic...nothing to it but to do it...the challenge at that point is not screwing it up! :p

Anyways, hopefully this is interesting to someone.

It's a beautiful day in Providence...thank God for sunshine. Much love to you guys...thanks for your support and comments...they help keep me going! I may post more on the process of character and concept design later. For now: It's summer! GO PLAY IN THE SUN!

Love,

-n

How It Grows.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow Flight Volume 8 hits shelves.

Today I'm posting this: the black-and-white of page 1. I'm not sure whether to call it 'inks' or 'pencils' since it's neither. I worked with a totally different method than I usually do and the upshot is: The Hollow Men will be the first ever totally-digital comic work I've done.

I also tried to teach myself about value and composition by working out the hierarchy in black and white before I colored (which usually isn't the case...generally I do clean lineart and then try to figure out value and color together). I had a great time working in this method...I've always loved stark compositions, and it's so much easier to figure out layout when you're thinking about light and dark at the same time as lineart.

Hopefully it's interesting to see how something develops conceptually from start to finish. If there's interest, I can explain more of my thought process...but I think it's fun to see how different the layout of the final page turned out than the previous thumbnail stage, even though all the ideas are essentially still there. I'm trying to hone down what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Anyways, I have been getting really wordy recently...so I'll stop myself this time and just hope you guys enjoy the preview!

Cheers,

-n