the joys of redux ~

[lookingland]

so i decided that rather than fight with the backgrounds, i'd just eliminate them (to some degree). i like this much better. it's softer and the characters don't get lost in a muddy palette (stage designer, i am not). it also plays to my strengths: i like coloring the people and doing shading. big areas of color, not so much. i meant to color nora's kerchief, but i can go back and do that later. the nice thing about all these digital geegaws is that you can fix mistakes and omissions so easily! i love that.

i had to completely redraw the page, which was a drag, though i made a few improvements. Some of the previous expressions i liked better, but i'm not going to nitpick. the fact that i managed to redraw the page at all after wrecking the original one is leaps and bounds ahead of my usual response to creative obstacles (which is to go watch tv and hope the problem will magically resolve itself).

anyway, i futzed with the settings a lot trying to flatten the tones, only to discover that a straight scan and no tweaking gives the best results (go figure!). i really wanted this to look more uniform (i only used 4 colors to paint this), but watercolor is very subtle and can generate all manner of shades ~ even when you don't want it to.

all in all, even though i basically just remade what i had done yesterday, i feel like i did good work today ~ and the evening is yet young!

: D



okay, i'm gonna go make another page now.

Comments

[lastremnant.livejournal.com]

You rock at drawing comics. And I agree about what you did with the background. It helped a lot better, bringing the focus on the characters more. :)

Off topic, you know when I was in my "wanna gotta have-a need-a Macbook" phase I saw a piece of software for manga or comic drawing or something for the Mac. It looked sort of interesting although I'm not sure how well it works.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

hiya greggy! ~ and thanks!

i think i know which software you're talking about ~ it's iComic or something like that. i had it at one point and futzed around with it, but it had a learning curve (golly forbid), and i'm so comfortable with PhotoShop, i just decided to keep doing as i was doing (because i am supremely lazy). but it did really look interesting. i oughta see if it's still somewhere around here.

: D

I hate having to think of a "subject" for my comment

[(Anonymous)]

hahahahaha I suck at titles.

It's really amazing how much the color or the removal of it changes the sense or mood of the thing!

Seems to me redrawing a piece isn't that much different than rewriting something --it's good productive work.

Yay for you, boo!

m.

Re: I hate having to think of a "subject" for my comment

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i couldn't leave well enough alone and put in (basted lightly) a background color of sorts. but i'm more or less satisfied with it. i finished another page last night and am going to see how far i get this week to determine whether to actually make a "go" of this as a regular thing.

i'm not so fond of the redrawing, but this wasn't nearly as painful as i thought it might be. and you're right ~ it's all part of the exercise.

: D