Sigune's How Not To Draw Comics - Part III
I have to think hard to explain what inspires me to express a certain scene or story in the form of a comic and another in prose. Sometimes I start both. Sometimes a prose version makes me lose interest in the comic version. Sometimes it doesn’t.
I am not sure why, after writing The Tunnel, which I consider a successful story in the sense that I managed to give satisfactory expression to what I wanted to tell in it, I still wanted to draw a similar tale. If I were asked, I think I’d say that a good author ought to be able to express just about everything in their writing, and good prose should make illustrations superfluous. Maybe I’m just not a good enough writer. That, and I want too much.
Descriptions in prose only go that far. Even if an author describes a character in great detail, different readers will still form different images in their minds’ eye, and when they see an illustration to the text they will often be heard to say that it doesn’t look like ‘their’ character at all.
In a comic, a character is constituted not just of words, but also of lines (and possibly colours). There can be little argument: the picture is fixed and that is it. It also means that the fond artist can provide lavish detail of a cherished character’s appearance without being accused of bad writing and providing information in which nobody is interested. In comics, appearance is a necessity. It is that which, in my case, inspires everything. Basically, what I wanted to do was to put Snape on display, and the story of the ‘prank’ provides an interesting means for doing so because it is charged with great emotion - feelings strong enough that even a cold fish like Snape isn’t able to contain and repress them.
4. And There Was Light…
Everybody familiar with my drawings knows that it is never my intention to make Snape handsomer than he appears in canon. He has an enormous hooknose, sharp features, greasy hair and, when you can see them, uneven teeth. I don’t mind him being ugly. Indeed, I love drawing him like that. But I do indulge myself in imagining him as having beautiful hands. That is the fangirl in me [she confessed, blushing scarlet]. I immediately notice people’s hands, and find attractive hands much more interesting than an attractive face, so when JKR included descriptions of the Potions master’s long fingers, my course was set :-).
When I write prose I have to keep my enthusiasm in check. Mentioning those alluring long, thin fingers once per one-shot is really quite enough; more would be irritating and overtly squee-ish. But in a comic - HA! I can draw just as many beautiful hands as I like (well, restricted to two per body, of course). So, when I started to think about a beginning, I thought I might just give myself a treat and show Snape’s hands in all their glory. (Well - as far as my draughtsmanship permits, naturally.)
Right. Gratuitous hands.
I have long been fascinated by the phenomenon of canon’s wandless magic. I find it interesting because it does not use any medium; it proceeds more directly from the caster than the magic guided by a wand. The Discworld wizards occasionally throw fireballs; I like the idea of throwing fire with one’s hands. (Yes, I have weird fascinations.) I was therefore quite delighted to find something similar in the Potter books, in PoA’s Dementor chapter:
“There was a soft, crackling noise and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin seemed to be holding a handful of flames.” (Bb p. 64)
Yay! There was no doubt in my mind that Snape could do that, too :-). Ever since the Philosopher’s Stone’s obstacle course I have suspected he has something special with fire. Fire plus hands? I must use it.
I’m not sure why, but ever since I first started to invent things about Snape, religion has found its way into both images and stories. I guess it must have been Saint Paul and the idea of confession and redemption that made the connection a natural one for me. I find that Catholicism, the Bible and Snape somehow add up, and when I browse through the Holy Writ (I simply love Bibletools.org and its excellent search engine) I always find quotes that make wonderful sense in explaining events and attitudes in the Potions master’s existence - both for serious and ironic use. This time I was going for irony as I said to myself, Let There Be Light. My first panels would be of Snape opening his hand and conjuring a fire. I had previously decided to use cross-hatching to create contrasts and darkness, so I might as well make good use of them.
The first thing to do was to draw a nice fist or closed hand. Hands, as any struggling amateur (and some professionals, I suspect) knows, are not quite the easiest part of the human anatomy to draw. In fact, they are a bother. But if you want your character to have beautiful hands, and happen to be one of these people who pay a lot of attention to hands, well, you haven’t got much choice except to work hard and try to get them more or less right :-). Here is one of my first tries:
Definitely not beautiful, attractive or elegant. Wouldn’t do at all. Bleh.
Here is the next try:
This one was good enough for me. I kept it for the definitive panel; that means I traced this very one on chalk paper and transferred it.
I wouldn’t dare to claim that this is a perfect drawing of a hand. It’s just one that doesn’t have anything obviously wrong with it, or not that I can see (maybe you can, though; I miss the oddest things about my own drawings). The thing is that I can’t draw a fist without a model of some kind. The only models I have available are (by absence of a good photograph) my own hands. I was drawing a right hand, so I had to put my pencil down, make a fist, attempt to look at it from a suitable angle, and then try to draw it as well as I could. You’ll never hear me claim that in this way perfection is within reach :-D…
The second panel was easier: here, his hand would be outstretched and holding the flames. You can find the image at the top of this entry.
After the first panels I decided that henceforth Snape would be left-handed. *cough*
Once I had the light, what was Snape going to do with it? Well…
(Note that the hand is the same as the one at the top of this page, but with the index finger not entirely stretched. It looks messy and I don’t like it.)
The first (and so far only) story in which I explicitly had Snape have a smoke was The Dark Night of the Soul. More than one reviewer expressed their horror at the fact, which rather surprised me - I hardly ever read people objecting against what is in my opinion much stronger stuff in fanfic ;-). Then again, maybe a new warning ought to be introduced; to complement ‘BDSM’, ‘rape’, ‘torture’ and ‘character death’, we could have ‘character smokes’ - equally shocking, I have been told.
BUT in case seeing Snape smoke in my comic urges you to write me an admonishment of some kind, please consider that it can be read as a cautionary page: if you smoke, you may end up like Snape! Smoking kills! Snape kills too!
[/silliness]
Say what you want, I think it makes sense that Snape should be a smoker. It’s not odd in view of his background, and there are his yellow teeth to account for. Apart from that, the only thing that, to my mind, compensates for the dreadful fumes that come from cigarettes, permeating my clothes and making me cough, is the fact that there can be elegance in the act of smoking (this perception of mine is entirely Oscar Wilde’s doing; everyone warned me that the man would corrupt me), particularly in the way a cigarette is held - in one’s hand, between long, thin fingers, for instance. So, for an amateur of hands, they do hold some appeal…
This is my own left hand with exaggerated nails and holding a pencil. Of the two top sketches, I liked the first one best, or thought it had the best chance of ever looking right. The inked one is the second try, with the angle slightly adapted. It was in pencil first, but because I always struggle with hands and tend to end up with a lot of confusing pencil lines, I often ink the definitive shape so as not to get lost.
On the second part of the page, I wanted the focus to shift from Snape’s hands to his face - we are now entering his point of view. His head is bowed so as to light his cigarette. That means, quite naturally, that two greasy curtains should be coming down. The drawback of Snape’s long hair is that it is likely to obscure his face, and though that may on occasion be profitable in terms of expression, I didn’t want it here. That is why you will often see him on my pages with his hair tucked behind his ear, usually to one side only. I try to be consistent with the side, but if it’s just better the other way I won’t hesitate to change it. If you look closely at the largest of the sketches, you can see that here I did experiment with just letting the hair fall, but I thought it didn’t look good so I used my little trick in the end.
Are you still with me? How brave! Well then, have the finished page - I hope you like it :-). I’m afraid there is some more inane babbling too - sorry about that. *blush*
Just a few more things for those who are still awake:
If you compare this to my early Diagon Alley page, it will be obvious that this time I have safeguarded my freedom ;-). Instead of the constricting nine panels of the early page, I have now let the size of the sketched hands decide the outlook and arrangement. The hands required that the page should have only two strips of panels, so that is what happened. In a kind of overreaction I even decided against clear-cut frames. I just let the panel fill itself up, and drew lines where there was really too much white. It made for a somewhat messy, sloppy look, but that felt right for a comic about a greasy-haired young man in grey underwear.
There is also something weird - a kind of cut-and-paste quality to the page on account of the fact that I don’t use shading on the face and hands. Consider it a personal oddity and part of the Sigune look. I need cross-hatching for my backgrounds and I really like it there; but I am still a faithful adherent to the Clear Line and the things I want to draw your attention to will always be a clean black and white. That is what I love best. Shading would only spoil the clean lines.
Those who give the above page a really keen look might find something that contradicts what I have just said. In the second panel of the lower strip, there is some shading under Snape’s eye. The reason is -
*ahem*
The reason is that when I had finished inking the page, it suddenly struck me that Snape’s eye was placed too low in his face. It was a bit late in the day, but well, I couldn’t leave it like that. I took my white Hybrid Roller (the pen I use for corrections) and covered the offending eye, drawing a better one above that spot. Unfortunately, the correction showed. This was in the days before I had even thought of the possibilities offered by the Net, had never seen a scanner up close (let alone worked it) and the people who got to see my work always saw the original page. So, in order to mask my incompetence, I added some shading on top of the correction to mask it, and nobody ever knew. Well, they did find it a little odd that Snape should be visibly excited by nothing more than an ordinary cigarette (which, I have only recently realised, should probably not have a filter. He is more likely to have rolled his own. My ignorance of cigarettes and smoking shows…).
Well, that’s it for now; I have tried your patience enough :-). Oh, and don’t worry - I won’t always have so much to say about a page…
Next: Page Two!
I am not sure why, after writing The Tunnel, which I consider a successful story in the sense that I managed to give satisfactory expression to what I wanted to tell in it, I still wanted to draw a similar tale. If I were asked, I think I’d say that a good author ought to be able to express just about everything in their writing, and good prose should make illustrations superfluous. Maybe I’m just not a good enough writer. That, and I want too much.
Descriptions in prose only go that far. Even if an author describes a character in great detail, different readers will still form different images in their minds’ eye, and when they see an illustration to the text they will often be heard to say that it doesn’t look like ‘their’ character at all.
In a comic, a character is constituted not just of words, but also of lines (and possibly colours). There can be little argument: the picture is fixed and that is it. It also means that the fond artist can provide lavish detail of a cherished character’s appearance without being accused of bad writing and providing information in which nobody is interested. In comics, appearance is a necessity. It is that which, in my case, inspires everything. Basically, what I wanted to do was to put Snape on display, and the story of the ‘prank’ provides an interesting means for doing so because it is charged with great emotion - feelings strong enough that even a cold fish like Snape isn’t able to contain and repress them.
4. And There Was Light…
Everybody familiar with my drawings knows that it is never my intention to make Snape handsomer than he appears in canon. He has an enormous hooknose, sharp features, greasy hair and, when you can see them, uneven teeth. I don’t mind him being ugly. Indeed, I love drawing him like that. But I do indulge myself in imagining him as having beautiful hands. That is the fangirl in me [she confessed, blushing scarlet]. I immediately notice people’s hands, and find attractive hands much more interesting than an attractive face, so when JKR included descriptions of the Potions master’s long fingers, my course was set :-).
When I write prose I have to keep my enthusiasm in check. Mentioning those alluring long, thin fingers once per one-shot is really quite enough; more would be irritating and overtly squee-ish. But in a comic - HA! I can draw just as many beautiful hands as I like (well, restricted to two per body, of course). So, when I started to think about a beginning, I thought I might just give myself a treat and show Snape’s hands in all their glory. (Well - as far as my draughtsmanship permits, naturally.)
Right. Gratuitous hands.
I have long been fascinated by the phenomenon of canon’s wandless magic. I find it interesting because it does not use any medium; it proceeds more directly from the caster than the magic guided by a wand. The Discworld wizards occasionally throw fireballs; I like the idea of throwing fire with one’s hands. (Yes, I have weird fascinations.) I was therefore quite delighted to find something similar in the Potter books, in PoA’s Dementor chapter:
“There was a soft, crackling noise and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin seemed to be holding a handful of flames.” (Bb p. 64)
Yay! There was no doubt in my mind that Snape could do that, too :-). Ever since the Philosopher’s Stone’s obstacle course I have suspected he has something special with fire. Fire plus hands? I must use it.
I’m not sure why, but ever since I first started to invent things about Snape, religion has found its way into both images and stories. I guess it must have been Saint Paul and the idea of confession and redemption that made the connection a natural one for me. I find that Catholicism, the Bible and Snape somehow add up, and when I browse through the Holy Writ (I simply love Bibletools.org and its excellent search engine) I always find quotes that make wonderful sense in explaining events and attitudes in the Potions master’s existence - both for serious and ironic use. This time I was going for irony as I said to myself, Let There Be Light. My first panels would be of Snape opening his hand and conjuring a fire. I had previously decided to use cross-hatching to create contrasts and darkness, so I might as well make good use of them.
The first thing to do was to draw a nice fist or closed hand. Hands, as any struggling amateur (and some professionals, I suspect) knows, are not quite the easiest part of the human anatomy to draw. In fact, they are a bother. But if you want your character to have beautiful hands, and happen to be one of these people who pay a lot of attention to hands, well, you haven’t got much choice except to work hard and try to get them more or less right :-). Here is one of my first tries:
Definitely not beautiful, attractive or elegant. Wouldn’t do at all. Bleh.
Here is the next try:
This one was good enough for me. I kept it for the definitive panel; that means I traced this very one on chalk paper and transferred it.
I wouldn’t dare to claim that this is a perfect drawing of a hand. It’s just one that doesn’t have anything obviously wrong with it, or not that I can see (maybe you can, though; I miss the oddest things about my own drawings). The thing is that I can’t draw a fist without a model of some kind. The only models I have available are (by absence of a good photograph) my own hands. I was drawing a right hand, so I had to put my pencil down, make a fist, attempt to look at it from a suitable angle, and then try to draw it as well as I could. You’ll never hear me claim that in this way perfection is within reach :-D…
The second panel was easier: here, his hand would be outstretched and holding the flames. You can find the image at the top of this entry.
After the first panels I decided that henceforth Snape would be left-handed. *cough*
Once I had the light, what was Snape going to do with it? Well…
(Note that the hand is the same as the one at the top of this page, but with the index finger not entirely stretched. It looks messy and I don’t like it.)
The first (and so far only) story in which I explicitly had Snape have a smoke was The Dark Night of the Soul. More than one reviewer expressed their horror at the fact, which rather surprised me - I hardly ever read people objecting against what is in my opinion much stronger stuff in fanfic ;-). Then again, maybe a new warning ought to be introduced; to complement ‘BDSM’, ‘rape’, ‘torture’ and ‘character death’, we could have ‘character smokes’ - equally shocking, I have been told.
BUT in case seeing Snape smoke in my comic urges you to write me an admonishment of some kind, please consider that it can be read as a cautionary page: if you smoke, you may end up like Snape! Smoking kills! Snape kills too!
[/silliness]
Say what you want, I think it makes sense that Snape should be a smoker. It’s not odd in view of his background, and there are his yellow teeth to account for. Apart from that, the only thing that, to my mind, compensates for the dreadful fumes that come from cigarettes, permeating my clothes and making me cough, is the fact that there can be elegance in the act of smoking (this perception of mine is entirely Oscar Wilde’s doing; everyone warned me that the man would corrupt me), particularly in the way a cigarette is held - in one’s hand, between long, thin fingers, for instance. So, for an amateur of hands, they do hold some appeal…
This is my own left hand with exaggerated nails and holding a pencil. Of the two top sketches, I liked the first one best, or thought it had the best chance of ever looking right. The inked one is the second try, with the angle slightly adapted. It was in pencil first, but because I always struggle with hands and tend to end up with a lot of confusing pencil lines, I often ink the definitive shape so as not to get lost.
On the second part of the page, I wanted the focus to shift from Snape’s hands to his face - we are now entering his point of view. His head is bowed so as to light his cigarette. That means, quite naturally, that two greasy curtains should be coming down. The drawback of Snape’s long hair is that it is likely to obscure his face, and though that may on occasion be profitable in terms of expression, I didn’t want it here. That is why you will often see him on my pages with his hair tucked behind his ear, usually to one side only. I try to be consistent with the side, but if it’s just better the other way I won’t hesitate to change it. If you look closely at the largest of the sketches, you can see that here I did experiment with just letting the hair fall, but I thought it didn’t look good so I used my little trick in the end.
Are you still with me? How brave! Well then, have the finished page - I hope you like it :-). I’m afraid there is some more inane babbling too - sorry about that. *blush*
Just a few more things for those who are still awake:
If you compare this to my early Diagon Alley page, it will be obvious that this time I have safeguarded my freedom ;-). Instead of the constricting nine panels of the early page, I have now let the size of the sketched hands decide the outlook and arrangement. The hands required that the page should have only two strips of panels, so that is what happened. In a kind of overreaction I even decided against clear-cut frames. I just let the panel fill itself up, and drew lines where there was really too much white. It made for a somewhat messy, sloppy look, but that felt right for a comic about a greasy-haired young man in grey underwear.
There is also something weird - a kind of cut-and-paste quality to the page on account of the fact that I don’t use shading on the face and hands. Consider it a personal oddity and part of the Sigune look. I need cross-hatching for my backgrounds and I really like it there; but I am still a faithful adherent to the Clear Line and the things I want to draw your attention to will always be a clean black and white. That is what I love best. Shading would only spoil the clean lines.
Those who give the above page a really keen look might find something that contradicts what I have just said. In the second panel of the lower strip, there is some shading under Snape’s eye. The reason is -
*ahem*
The reason is that when I had finished inking the page, it suddenly struck me that Snape’s eye was placed too low in his face. It was a bit late in the day, but well, I couldn’t leave it like that. I took my white Hybrid Roller (the pen I use for corrections) and covered the offending eye, drawing a better one above that spot. Unfortunately, the correction showed. This was in the days before I had even thought of the possibilities offered by the Net, had never seen a scanner up close (let alone worked it) and the people who got to see my work always saw the original page. So, in order to mask my incompetence, I added some shading on top of the correction to mask it, and nobody ever knew. Well, they did find it a little odd that Snape should be visibly excited by nothing more than an ordinary cigarette (which, I have only recently realised, should probably not have a filter. He is more likely to have rolled his own. My ignorance of cigarettes and smoking shows…).
Well, that’s it for now; I have tried your patience enough :-). Oh, and don’t worry - I won’t always have so much to say about a page…
Next: Page Two!