Composition studies
I wasn't satisfied with the composition of many panels on my storyboard for episode 35. The little break I took last week-end at Penguicon was a good time to take a bit of distance. Meanwhile, I decided to read again my books. The sentence under caught my attention:
"Howard Pyle used to say that he liked to do fifty thumbnail sketches for every illustration. Even if he felt confident of the first one, he had to do the other forty-nine anyway just to be sure." ~ Imaginative Realism, James Gurney, page 30.
Even if I don't have the time budget to do fifty thumbnails per panels; I could nonetheless try to paint a couple of iterations for the most problematic ones. Especially the key 'exposition' shots, because I have rarely problems with the composition of the reaction shots.
After some experimentation, the result of this experiment was fruitful; I have now a better understanding of the layout of my scene, and I could make many more iteration than the one on the screenshot above (many more not effective were just painted over). I'll now backport that to the storyboard and continue the production. For sure, I'll include this step as mandatory now in my future productions.
10 comments
thanks for sharing your process and reasoning. What do you mean with reaction shot and 'key exposition shot'?
I think you really get it :D ... The thumbnails where pepper try to escape from the dragon in the cave, are so immersive for me. Like its a snapshot from a movie or from a storyboard of that. Iam sure that some artists would call it not a sketch because of the level of detail, but anyway its so nice ^^ ...
I dont know Howard Pyle but i read imaginative realism and its always fascinating how much preperation/reseach Gurney takes for a picture. The time you showing that you use blender for a room or town scene, i associate it much with Gurneys approach for modelling (Architectrual Maquettes, p. 116-118.)
I can imagine that Gurneys approach is maybe misplaced for pepper and carrot in general about a cost view, but overall i envy you, Gurney, and all the artists who can spend some of their rare time in this 'Mise en Place' for a picture. I work the whole day, and when my daughter sleeps at 21.00 o' clock and then i think: "Great, you have now 45 minutes before you have to go to sleep". Waaahhhh :D (whatever it takes! I really use every minute for traininign like gesture drawing).
By the way, its 8 years a ago you wrote about artists book. As you said in a video, you have plans about tutorials and brush sharing from your new workflow, if you ever find the time after that, i think maybe some of us interested in your thoughts about artists books. I read between the lines may you would recommend some other books as you did here: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article195/article-books-i-recommend-for-learning-to-draw-and-paint ? Did you ever try art courses on Artstation, New Masters Art Acamdey, Proko or whatever? Maybe its a idea for a "revival" blog post. Just a idea and if you have passion for this topic. Dont feel bonded to it in any case.
Andreas :-)
Thanks! Oh, thanks for all the good ideas. 👍 True, I could update the blog-post about books. I have good recommendation for books about scenario and comic now. Also; I completed my collection of Loomis books and Bridgman. Yesterday, while recopying the quote from the book of J.Gurney; I also saw he recommends a long list of other book at the end; and books I never heard about it (like one book from Jean-Léon Gérôme about Drawing, afair; I'm really excited to find this one as it seems there is a relation of teacher/student between Gérôme, to Bridgman, to Loomis; and I'm curious to digg in the past about the root of the drawing method I'm using, especially finding it goes back to France classic painters ^__^). In Gurney's book; he said taking 14 days for a single illustration.
About Artstation, New Masters Art Acamdey, Proko or whatever; I often receive invitation to post videos or courses on platform other than mine; but it's always at the cost of puting the course behind a paywall, or an exclusivity of the platform, etc ; and I often end up refusing because it doesn't align with my philosophy. I'll scoot on this platform again to see if posting free access videos or post is possible. Reaching a new audience cosntantly is important; and right now, Youtube and Twitter are my more effective discovery door for newcomers.
Maybe soon I'll be enough confident to start something more like a drawing/painting video series. :-)
Hey,
- "reaction shot" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_shot ) It's often close-up on character reacting to something that happened in a previous panel. Here in my blog-post; I extended that to any portrait of character, even the one with speechbubbles −not reacting spefically to anything− just a head+neck+shoulder type of composition. This shot are easier for me to draw, do composition than the other ones.
- "(key) exposition shot" Same, I stretch here a bit the meaning of "exposition shot" in movie; reserved to a series of shot for the introduction (often panoramas, voice over, zooming in a city, then a building, then a windows) something that give the general context of the movie. In my case, I added the "key" word because I use big panorama; or large shot to often change context; or show how relation between object/actor in space changed; how they evolves. The "key" comes probably as "keyframe". It's a bit like if I had to illustrate this story in a book; the 5 key panels I would use to illustrate the text. In fact, many Pepper&Carrot episode are built like illustration book; this type of shot first, in big; to create a sort of 'wow' factor when opening the book or scrolling; then filling the in-between with less interesting panels to articulate the story between those "(key) exposition shot" panels.
Oh, and I just checked my email; many many thanks for the 🎁 !
thank you very much for your explaination
<3
What's that "Reference Docker Plus", and where can I get it?
Hi CyanLos;
It's the plugin https://github.com/antoine-roux/krita-plugin-reference for Krita. I installed two of them on my machine to get two references dockers. Because the name of the two plugins were coliding, I renamed one of them with the "Plus" at the end to get both.
Thanks! Installed it now. I didn't know there was such a feature / plugin!
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