Sigune's How Not To Draw Comics - Part VII
It’s embarrassingly late, but I did want to wish a happy birthday to lunafish and humantales: Happy birthday!
dolabellae is luckier - at least for her I’m actually on time: Happy birthday!
Have a page, recently ‘birthdayed’ flistees :-). I’m sorry it’s not a better one, but I couldn’t very well skip to the next…
Yes: here, finally, is a page about which I do not have a lot to say. (I believe I said that last time as well, but ended up chatting away. Not so this time.) We have now arrived at page five. In case you have missed anything, the links to previous pages are below.
The Comic So Far:
Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four
Brynhild
10. Another Case of the Author Indulging Herself
For some reason, Page Five ended up being a page-sized panel. I hope nobody expects me to have a particularly deep reason for this, because I definitely can’t think of any ::grins::. All I remember is that I was drawing feet. I know that doesn’t seem to have any obvious connection to the size of comics panels, but I am only relating what happened :-). Just bear with me for a while.
In one of my earlier posts I went at length into my passion for hands, and how they tend to be annoyingly difficult to draw. Now, in the meantime, and particularly while working on this very comic, my draughts(wo)manship has improved a lot (this may make some of you wonder where I came from, hee hee), and by the time I arrived at Page Five I was generally pretty happy with how I managed hands. Feet, however, continued to present problems - bare feet, that is, not those clad in boots. The problems I have with feet are mostly concerned with the toes. Somehow they usually look clumsily done, whether from the front or from the side. It’s difficult to explain how or why, but they just don’t look good, and that’s a pity because I rather like the sight of a nice, slender foot.
Anyway - when it was time for Page Five to work itself out, I found myself drawing curled-up Severuses in nightshirts, and with bare feet. Actually I was paying most attention to the arch of the back, because I thought that was most important in determining the shape of the image. It was not going too well, and as usually happens, my attention shifted to other parts of the figure. And suddenly there was … a foot that looked fine! I guess I was so happy that I decided to make my little barefoot Snape in his nightshirt the very centre of a large drawing :-). I had the foot; now all I had to do was fix the rest ;-).
(I have no idea why Brynhild popped onto the page. She has absolutely no business in this story. And actually, now that I look at it, I have no idea why I thought at the time that this foot was so great. Surely the toes are too long?! :D )
Ah well. On with the story.
Where could I place my barefoot Snape-in-nighties? My idea was: in his bed.
This seemed a logical thing, but it was not particularly clever of me. You see, I’m not very good at drawing beds, let alone bedrooms and tables and trunks and all the other things that dwell in them. It all requires a reasonable knowledge of perspective, and mine is extremely rudimentary. In opting for drawing Snape in his bed, I caused myself a lot of problems; and as a result this page is very much proof of where my limits as a comics artist lie. You can see for yourself:
There are a few things utterly wrong with the perspective, most notably of the trunk and the bedside table. They did not strike me as wrong when I inked them, or I would not have left them this way. I also made a mistake with the wooden floor: although in this case I understood how the perspective was supposed to work, and I measured the boards with a ruler, there is one plank (the one that starts from the left extremity of the large white book on the ground - the one left of Severus’ boots) that looks entirely wrong. The reason is that I accidentally skipped one dot while connecting, and I only noticed when I was already busy with the inking. Fortunately it is remarkably unobtrusive, and I don’t suppose many people would notice if I didn’t point it out. It’s only later that I realised the floor should probably have been tiled anyway, the Slytherin dormitory being in the dungeons. I rather like the boards though, so I don’t really regret the mistake.
As for the bed, I felt a bit apprehensive about it, because one of the problems I have with drawing beds is that I feel they never look soft and comfy enough. I think now that this is partly the result of the fact that I will insist on drawing the full outline of my characters, and so they never look as if they can sink deeply enough into the material.
I enjoyed doing the drapery. I hadn’t had much of a chance to do curtains and other drapery in the comic so far, so I over-indulged a bit - this sort looks a bit luxurious for a school dormitory. The tassels are pure Beardsley influence, though admittedly less ornate than he would have drawn them…
I suppose the final background looks as if I just took the easy way out. I originally intended there to be a window through which the full moon could be seen, as in the above sketch, but then it occurred to me that the dungeons are below ground so there wouldn’t be any windows. I consciously avoided showing glimpses of other beds in the dormitory, because Severus feels very isolated at this point and is pretty oblivious of other people himself - the panel is supposed to express that too. So in the end I opted for ‘just darkness’ and cross-hatched (ouch!) the whole thing.
One of the funniest things about this page was determining what things would be found around Severus’ bed :-). I had a brainstorm with Elfie about it. She suggested such diverse things as a stuffed bat or toad, a manual on How To Conquer the Damsel of your Dreams, a sleeping draught and a flesh-eating plant; we agreed there would certainly be lots of books. I liked the idea of the flesh-eating plant. Not only would it be one of the few kinds of plants you can keep in the dungeons; I also began to imagine the thing as a Venus Flytrap that grew to an enormous size and ate other Slytherins’ pets, or something of the kind. It’s a bit silly, but I liked it so much that the plant even made a cameo appearance in my WIP Purity:
[Snape has just been hired as a Potions master, and he meets his old teachers, now his colleagues, at Hogwarts’s first staff meeting of the school year.]
“Pomona!” Severus was distracted from his gloomy thoughts when the tiny Charms professor began to jump up and down excitedly and wave at a short, plump witch with curly grey hair. “Look who’s here - I bet you remember young Snape as well as I do.”
“I certainly do,” Professor Sprout said amiably. “There are not so many Slytherins who take to Herbology quite the way Severus did. He is a remarkable experimental botanist, you know, Filius. In his second year he bred a hybrid Dionaea, a cross with Devil’s Snare that grew to monstrous proportions and devoured a steady number of unfortunate students’ pets.”
She sounded enthusiastic, but Professor Flitwick looked mildly upset.
“It’s the only kind of plant to need so little light that you can keep it in the dungeons,” Severus muttered by way of explanation.
“Never mind dear,” Professor Sprout patted his elbow, “when it comes to plants, Filius has little sense of adventure. Do you by any chance still have that Dionaea? I’d be interested in a cutting of it. It was a wonderful specimen.”
“I’m sorry, Professor -”
“Oh, please call me Pomona, Severus. We’re colleagues now.”
Severus grinned. He had always liked Professor Sprout, though he had been clever enough never to mention the fact in the Slytherin common room. “Thank you. All the same, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I had to sell it - that plant cost a fortune in fine meats. I simply couldn’t afford to keep it.”
“Sold it?” The Herbology teacher frowned. “May I ask to whom?”
“Lucius Malfoy. Narcissa is allergic to dogs, and he bought the Dionaea as an extra protection for the Manor. He gave me a good price for it. Maybe if I wrote to him and asked for a cutting, he might -”
In this drawing it hasn’t quite come that far yet, but the Flytrap is already a lot larger than it normally ought to be :-)…
As for the books, I enjoy drawing nice bindings as much as I enjoy collecting them in real life. The most beautiful books are in my father’s collection, though; and if he’d see this page he might recognise the spine of his Dodoens in the large book at the bottom of the pile, and the locks and metal corners of the same on the black book under the bedside table. (I love that Dodoens! It’s a facsimile, but it looks great…) Because I’ve had to make the panel smaller than it is in reality, you can’t read the titles anymore. Rather predictably, most books concern potions and Dark Arts; but there are two literary works as well. I don’t like fics in which Snape quotes from the classics of literature, and once I was appalled to find that a story I enjoyed suddenly had Snape and Lupin reciting bits from Lord of the Rings to each other (not to mention the fact that Snape turned out to speak and write Elvish, AARGH!!); but ever since the rhyming puzzle in PS I have somehow got it into my head that poetry is a secret foible of his. So, whereas I wouldn’t have him quote from them, I placed a Swinburne and a Poe book by his bed; I guess that if he does indeed like poetry, it might be something of that kind.
There are a Bible and rosary on the bedside table - the shrinking has left them barely recognisable. F-list habitués already know that my Snape is for some reason or other a Catholic.
Finally: I’m still happy with Snape’s left foot, but now I think I didn’t do a very good job on his hand :-(…
Next: Meet Mssrs. Padfoot and Wormtail…
dolabellae is luckier - at least for her I’m actually on time: Happy birthday!
Have a page, recently ‘birthdayed’ flistees :-). I’m sorry it’s not a better one, but I couldn’t very well skip to the next…
Yes: here, finally, is a page about which I do not have a lot to say. (I believe I said that last time as well, but ended up chatting away. Not so this time.) We have now arrived at page five. In case you have missed anything, the links to previous pages are below.
The Comic So Far:
Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four
Brynhild
10. Another Case of the Author Indulging Herself
For some reason, Page Five ended up being a page-sized panel. I hope nobody expects me to have a particularly deep reason for this, because I definitely can’t think of any ::grins::. All I remember is that I was drawing feet. I know that doesn’t seem to have any obvious connection to the size of comics panels, but I am only relating what happened :-). Just bear with me for a while.
In one of my earlier posts I went at length into my passion for hands, and how they tend to be annoyingly difficult to draw. Now, in the meantime, and particularly while working on this very comic, my draughts(wo)manship has improved a lot (this may make some of you wonder where I came from, hee hee), and by the time I arrived at Page Five I was generally pretty happy with how I managed hands. Feet, however, continued to present problems - bare feet, that is, not those clad in boots. The problems I have with feet are mostly concerned with the toes. Somehow they usually look clumsily done, whether from the front or from the side. It’s difficult to explain how or why, but they just don’t look good, and that’s a pity because I rather like the sight of a nice, slender foot.
Anyway - when it was time for Page Five to work itself out, I found myself drawing curled-up Severuses in nightshirts, and with bare feet. Actually I was paying most attention to the arch of the back, because I thought that was most important in determining the shape of the image. It was not going too well, and as usually happens, my attention shifted to other parts of the figure. And suddenly there was … a foot that looked fine! I guess I was so happy that I decided to make my little barefoot Snape in his nightshirt the very centre of a large drawing :-). I had the foot; now all I had to do was fix the rest ;-).
(I have no idea why Brynhild popped onto the page. She has absolutely no business in this story. And actually, now that I look at it, I have no idea why I thought at the time that this foot was so great. Surely the toes are too long?! :D )
Ah well. On with the story.
Where could I place my barefoot Snape-in-nighties? My idea was: in his bed.
This seemed a logical thing, but it was not particularly clever of me. You see, I’m not very good at drawing beds, let alone bedrooms and tables and trunks and all the other things that dwell in them. It all requires a reasonable knowledge of perspective, and mine is extremely rudimentary. In opting for drawing Snape in his bed, I caused myself a lot of problems; and as a result this page is very much proof of where my limits as a comics artist lie. You can see for yourself:
There are a few things utterly wrong with the perspective, most notably of the trunk and the bedside table. They did not strike me as wrong when I inked them, or I would not have left them this way. I also made a mistake with the wooden floor: although in this case I understood how the perspective was supposed to work, and I measured the boards with a ruler, there is one plank (the one that starts from the left extremity of the large white book on the ground - the one left of Severus’ boots) that looks entirely wrong. The reason is that I accidentally skipped one dot while connecting, and I only noticed when I was already busy with the inking. Fortunately it is remarkably unobtrusive, and I don’t suppose many people would notice if I didn’t point it out. It’s only later that I realised the floor should probably have been tiled anyway, the Slytherin dormitory being in the dungeons. I rather like the boards though, so I don’t really regret the mistake.
As for the bed, I felt a bit apprehensive about it, because one of the problems I have with drawing beds is that I feel they never look soft and comfy enough. I think now that this is partly the result of the fact that I will insist on drawing the full outline of my characters, and so they never look as if they can sink deeply enough into the material.
I enjoyed doing the drapery. I hadn’t had much of a chance to do curtains and other drapery in the comic so far, so I over-indulged a bit - this sort looks a bit luxurious for a school dormitory. The tassels are pure Beardsley influence, though admittedly less ornate than he would have drawn them…
I suppose the final background looks as if I just took the easy way out. I originally intended there to be a window through which the full moon could be seen, as in the above sketch, but then it occurred to me that the dungeons are below ground so there wouldn’t be any windows. I consciously avoided showing glimpses of other beds in the dormitory, because Severus feels very isolated at this point and is pretty oblivious of other people himself - the panel is supposed to express that too. So in the end I opted for ‘just darkness’ and cross-hatched (ouch!) the whole thing.
One of the funniest things about this page was determining what things would be found around Severus’ bed :-). I had a brainstorm with Elfie about it. She suggested such diverse things as a stuffed bat or toad, a manual on How To Conquer the Damsel of your Dreams, a sleeping draught and a flesh-eating plant; we agreed there would certainly be lots of books. I liked the idea of the flesh-eating plant. Not only would it be one of the few kinds of plants you can keep in the dungeons; I also began to imagine the thing as a Venus Flytrap that grew to an enormous size and ate other Slytherins’ pets, or something of the kind. It’s a bit silly, but I liked it so much that the plant even made a cameo appearance in my WIP Purity:
[Snape has just been hired as a Potions master, and he meets his old teachers, now his colleagues, at Hogwarts’s first staff meeting of the school year.]
“Pomona!” Severus was distracted from his gloomy thoughts when the tiny Charms professor began to jump up and down excitedly and wave at a short, plump witch with curly grey hair. “Look who’s here - I bet you remember young Snape as well as I do.”
“I certainly do,” Professor Sprout said amiably. “There are not so many Slytherins who take to Herbology quite the way Severus did. He is a remarkable experimental botanist, you know, Filius. In his second year he bred a hybrid Dionaea, a cross with Devil’s Snare that grew to monstrous proportions and devoured a steady number of unfortunate students’ pets.”
She sounded enthusiastic, but Professor Flitwick looked mildly upset.
“It’s the only kind of plant to need so little light that you can keep it in the dungeons,” Severus muttered by way of explanation.
“Never mind dear,” Professor Sprout patted his elbow, “when it comes to plants, Filius has little sense of adventure. Do you by any chance still have that Dionaea? I’d be interested in a cutting of it. It was a wonderful specimen.”
“I’m sorry, Professor -”
“Oh, please call me Pomona, Severus. We’re colleagues now.”
Severus grinned. He had always liked Professor Sprout, though he had been clever enough never to mention the fact in the Slytherin common room. “Thank you. All the same, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I had to sell it - that plant cost a fortune in fine meats. I simply couldn’t afford to keep it.”
“Sold it?” The Herbology teacher frowned. “May I ask to whom?”
“Lucius Malfoy. Narcissa is allergic to dogs, and he bought the Dionaea as an extra protection for the Manor. He gave me a good price for it. Maybe if I wrote to him and asked for a cutting, he might -”
In this drawing it hasn’t quite come that far yet, but the Flytrap is already a lot larger than it normally ought to be :-)…
As for the books, I enjoy drawing nice bindings as much as I enjoy collecting them in real life. The most beautiful books are in my father’s collection, though; and if he’d see this page he might recognise the spine of his Dodoens in the large book at the bottom of the pile, and the locks and metal corners of the same on the black book under the bedside table. (I love that Dodoens! It’s a facsimile, but it looks great…) Because I’ve had to make the panel smaller than it is in reality, you can’t read the titles anymore. Rather predictably, most books concern potions and Dark Arts; but there are two literary works as well. I don’t like fics in which Snape quotes from the classics of literature, and once I was appalled to find that a story I enjoyed suddenly had Snape and Lupin reciting bits from Lord of the Rings to each other (not to mention the fact that Snape turned out to speak and write Elvish, AARGH!!); but ever since the rhyming puzzle in PS I have somehow got it into my head that poetry is a secret foible of his. So, whereas I wouldn’t have him quote from them, I placed a Swinburne and a Poe book by his bed; I guess that if he does indeed like poetry, it might be something of that kind.
There are a Bible and rosary on the bedside table - the shrinking has left them barely recognisable. F-list habitués already know that my Snape is for some reason or other a Catholic.
Finally: I’m still happy with Snape’s left foot, but now I think I didn’t do a very good job on his hand :-(…
Next: Meet Mssrs. Padfoot and Wormtail…