Added 1 new A* page:Hope you didn't stay up all night waiting for this page, it sure involved a lot of hemming and hawing, I guess because I felt it was emotionally important or something. Things started out puzzlingly askew in the pencils, and a little doodling in Photoshop helped show how things could be cleared up my straightening the jaw and moving the mouth over a bit...then I just kept fiddling with the eyes and mouth:
Well I inked those last pencils up and eventually I thought I had it
except that the sort of shadow line along the cheek was bothering me--looked more like a scar than a shadow. So I replaced it, and simplified the hair and nose while I was at it:
I thought that was finally it, but then I got to thinking about that big white unshadowed side of the face there, and again found myself doodling on the photo in Photoshop
at which point I realized--well, after arguing with myself for twenty minutes or so--that I wasn't gonna be happy until I painted that shadow in. So I did, and again thought I had it done
except that, looking at it, there was still a slight askewness about the face that I couldn't quite place; so once again in Photoshop doodles were made--here and there around the face, blocking parts off or adding shadows on until things started straightening:
Just a little more brow and chin would seem to do the trick, simulated. So I put that into ink, more or less, scanned the page in a third time, and...voila?
Oops no, not quite, that brow looks a bit too happy. Photoshop says if I just carve away the happy curve of the top bit...ah. Hm and the left sides of those irises need shoring up... Scan it a third time, wash my brushes a third time, and that's all there is to it! :P
This process is totally laborious... It's interesting though because if I was just doing this digitally, I'd make those changes instinctively on the digital canvas, without really knowing why I'd done it, except it looked better, and that would be that--but since I have to go through a time-consuming re-inking and re-scanning/photographing process to make the changes, I have to convince myself they're worthwhile, so I make myself figure out *why* they seem to improve things, and then I actually understand something I didn't before about particular parts of anatomy. Yes it's edutainment! Although I'm really only bothering with these last changes I guess because there's a garage sale I want to hit in an hour or so now, so I might as well just stay up. :PP
Hm you know one new time management problem I've realized I have this week is that I can't do pencils and inks separately, with a large space of time in between--because then I come back from whatever the break was, take a look at the pencils, and inevitably decide I have to redo significant chunks of them. ;P
~~~~~~
I got a lot of support from readers for the Major; people really seem to have warmed up to him and didn't want to see him, well, in the situation in which we found him on the previous page. I appreciate that, and I was rather starting to like the ol' cuss myself. I know it *does* seem like I tend to do horrible things to characters who turn out to be fairly nice people... Uh... Huh. Well I was going to say that that won't always be the case, but come to think of it I don't think we'll really have any more nice people around for a while, anyway. I mean, there will be interesting people, and people with eh some redeeming qualities, I think... Ooh and maybe some minor characters for flavor who could be nice and might live! Oh well I guess they don't count really. Hm.
|
