This page was originally contained drawings pasted from my original version, though I previously redrew the two faces in panel 1, and the figures in panel 2. I'm wondering if I could get away with the figures in panel 3 - although noticeably less good that where I have used MS5's 3D models (e.g. panel 2) - they are pretty tiny, so I might get away with them, or a quick re-ink without posing models. The drawing of the rider reflects my use of high 'stabilisation' at first, and so looks slightly incongruous, however, it is Salimbini's imagined image (one could fairly say 'fantasy image'), there is a logic that it is more stylised, as with Uccello's (un-named) wife's differently imagined version of Uccello's painting on the previous page. Below is the page ready for colouring. In panel 1 I redrew the male face, the horse, the plinth and the arch. I redrew panel 3 entirely. And below is the flat coloured version. It looks a lot more coherent that what I started with. some of the adjacent colours are too tonally similar, but i hope I can fix that at the toning stage. There is a lot of single flat colour on this page, but I'm hoping that adding distressing/texture will address that. I'm thinking now that for panel 1, which is already an imaginary scene, I could add as perhaps a translucent overlay of an imagined landscape - perhaps san Roman as seen in Uccello's paintings that are the subject of the story.
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This was one the earliest pages and drawn in MS4 with relatively high 'stabilisation' on the lines. I think it generally works in itself, but does look a bit incongruous with later pages ( and indeed panel 1 of this page, which was drawn later in MS5). I'll alsoI redrew the background for panel 2, which was originally smaller (as one of 12 panels on an A4 page) and now looks less well resolved than the same view in later pages. I removed the ladder and perspective grid from the upper wall section (this is thought to be where the paintings were originally located, but I'm not going to show him painting up there). I need to apply some 'satisficing' (it's a conflation of satisfying and sacrificing), because I have some time pressure for my course work, and in the longer term, I do want to be able to work faster and more productively. On that basis, I decided to redraw (or rather - re-ink) the Uccello faces (on the left here) with low stabilisation, for consistency, but leave the Rocco ones (on the right), as he is drawn nearer that style, and there are no other close-ups of him that will look different. Later drawings of armoured figures are more fully realised, but that works here as these are imagine images, and so imperfect. Having so fixed panel 2, I did the same to panels 3 and 5, but for the background, simply pasting it from the improved version in panel 2. I redrew (or rather - re-inked) Uccello in each panel, and in particular, made his hat consistent with how it is drawn elsewhere. I had previously redrawn the witness from panels 4 and 6, which had been even more in need of it. I also hid any colours or toned layers, in order to create my bitmap for colouring. This involved having to draw outlines for the wooden beams in the background, and I'm not sure that will actually look better. I' may omit from the bitmap layer, which will allow me to either fill or hide them later. I'll also omit the 'pencil drawn' style imaginary battle scenes from the bitmap 'inks' layer. The next step is colour. Below is the colour flatted version.
Further to my earlier post about this, I tried two different approaches to the same image. The version immediately below was exported from MS5 at 200dpi PNG, and then cropped and resized in my web editor. the version below that was exported at 150dpi PNG, and is noticeably better quality (though looks slightly pixelated in panel 1). Strange, but I'll use the latter method in future.
I don't know why those images below look so fuzzy - I export them at 200dpi, which I believe is better than screen resolution. I'm not sure if the problem is that that is an incompatible size, or if something happens to the image when I crop (they automatically export from MS5 as A4 pages, and so with a large white border - cropping the border lets them appear bigge) and resize in my web editor.
They take long enough to export at 200dpi, I don't want to have to redo them. In the pat they have appeared fuzzy in my web editor, and then fine when view my published site on a web browser. As I go through the pages to colour, I am also making any necessary corrections and improvements. On page 18 this included changing panel 1 with Rocco holding a helmet, to him holding a glove - this is more logical, as in the following panel, we see Uccello has the second glove on, In practice this wasn't as simple as just erasing a helmet (I usually create these items on different layers, which makes it easier to e.g. copy and paste for other panels) and drawing a glove. In the original, his left hand was hidden by the helmet, and in trying to pose the right hand correctly I had to repose and so redraw the whole figure of Rocco. I am quite please with the drawing of the glove, as the angle and way it is held, with the arm opening pointed toward Uccello, I think, accurately conveys it being proffered to someone to put on After fixing the glove, I completed the colouring - only to realise that I had drawn a right-hand one, when it needed to be left-hand, so I had to go back and fix that. This led to a further issue that Uccello's hand with the other glove seemed disproportioned, and generally not as well drawn. Also Uccello's bare hand was somewhat fudged. This panel had been my first attempt to draw armour in detail - it was okay but somewhat inelegant, and seeming a mass of lines. MY next attempt in panel 2 was, I think, much more successful - it had a generally more confident and controlled quality to the lines. Also keeping the breastplate uncluttered, as a strong white shape seemed to hold the whole figure together. Anyway, as I had to fix the glove in panel 1, I decided just to redraw the whole suit of armour. This did take some time, as i had to make sure it was consistent with panel 2, however, in the end I think it is a small, but significant improvement, When working on the line art I had in fact made the background reduced opacity, to compensate for the lines being heavier than the figures. This looked good in black and white, but I had to restore the backgrounds to 100% for creating the inks layer. In fact, once they are coloured, the line weight is not a problem. It's worth noting here that I do go to some pains to have aesthetically pleasing lines, that make use of my pressure sensitive graphics tablet, for varied weights. I also use the Stabilisation feature for ink lines_ having this turned up fairly high for armour which requires smooth clean lines. I slightly lower the stabilisation for e.g. Rocco's belt, and sleeveless jacket, which is also meant to look like thick, stiff leather. I draw Rocco's face with medium stabilisation - as he is meant to be a strong and simple man, whereas I use less stabilisation for Uccello's face. I also use low stabilisation for drawing fabric (in this example - Roccco's sleeves). For a difficult line, I can delete and redraw it several times to get the best effect - one advantage of digital over actual pen and ink.The problem that goes with this is that's it's easy to forget to change the stabilisation back - you can the finish the drawing and have decide if it can be left, or needs redone. Above is the colour flatted version. as noted above, I had done the colouring before I noticed the glove error. I created a new bitmap layer for the changed drawing, and overlaid that on the completed colour, and then amended the affected area. This took slightly longer than anticipated - there were white lines where ink lines had been erased, making it a fiddly job to fix, especially with the pale colour of the armour. In future it would probably be easier to just select and delete the amended item from the colour flat layer, ands just redo that part from scratch. It would just depend how much needs changed. Some of the tonal relationships in the coloured version are not ideal - the faces and armour are perhaps too close to tonally close to the background, but I should be able to fix that with a tone layer. Pnals 3 and 4 are reprised (n reverse order) on the following page (Figure 4, below), so I have copied and pasted in the colour layer. Once Uccello has the helmet on I will overlay his imagined scenes of the battle, but I'll do that on separate layers, using opacity levels, and possibly masks, but I am thinking at this point it is still helpful to have the flats copied in. I may remove the figure of Rocco from panel 1. without any confusing tangentsI had this page inked a few weeks ago, and needed to do some further work before it was ready to colour.
Most obviously, it needed the paper falling from Uccello's hands, that I have now added in panel 2. It took some work to both get this aesthetically composed in relation to the figures, to follow the continuity of the previous panel, and also suggest that it was dropped on hearing the klang. Also I wasn't sure if a key action was clear - that Uccello, (while backing away from the threatening Rocco), bumps the armour, so alerting Rocco to its presence, and giving him a crucial idea.. I had discussed this with the tutor, and suggested I add a small inset panel, giving the detail of the foot hitting the armour. While the addition of this inset made storytelling sense, I was worried it would look incongruous. I have based every page on permutations of a three rows / two columns configuration, and this was going to be the only exception. I decided to make sure the inset panel was exactly a quarter (by area - half of each dimension) of the otherwise smallest panel. This size also seemed just right for showing the key detail on the same scale as all the other panels on the page, The 'L' shaped gutter might I thought be too much of a solid, distracting shape, so I looked at angling this slightly, to offset this. In fact it took some time getting it right. There were several things I had to get right in this small panel:
For example it would have meant sense for him to kick a large item like the helmet, which could roll, but on its side it would not read well in the next (big) panel, I opted for one of the armoured gloves, which was nearest to him in the panel next, which I had already drawn. I superimposed a ghost image of this to suggest it moving, and added motion lines to show the movement of his foot and leg. I also made the moved glove move slightly out of the panel border. I also wanted to include the 'KLANG!' sound effect. To include all that, and get a pleasing composition, without any confusing tangents, took a fair bit of time moving the image within the border in all directions in increments of a millimetre or less. I initially had the complete 'KLANG!' in panel two and just 'NG!' in the inset, however, I was quite pleased with my solution of putting only 'KLA' in panel two. It makes the relationship between the two panels clear - the inset is showing us the cause of the klang. Part of why it works is that the word reads vertically so implying a movement down to the character's feet. This is supported by the character (in panel 2) looking down to see the source of the klang. I also had to redraw the armour breastplate, to be consistent with a more exact rendering in a later (drawn) scene. The placement of the box and tipped over stool (its legs pointing towards Uccello) emphasise that there is literally (as well as metaphorically) no easy way out of this. I have previously mentioned that I have been looking at the addition of texture/distressed effects over the pages, and I think that would help on this page. I may distort a texture to emphasise the perspective on the call to the right. These various examples highlight the number of challenges in what might seem a straightforward page, and the effort and creativity in achieving elegant solutions. There are some further tweaks I might make: addition of Uccello's drawing on the wall - for continuity (seen on the previous page), and this would also indicate movement between panels 1 and 2 This page incorporates a fair amount of work done for the aborted first version of this story - essentially all the location details in panel 1, which are based on photos I took at the actual location - The 'Duomo' (cathedral) in Florence, where the Uccello painting (recreated by me below) can still be seen. This was done before I learnt how to do colour flats, so was created with multiple coloured layers, which I would often copy and distort (i.e. I added the perspective seen here after creating the image) to use in different panels. While these elements are in a visibly different style, I think it works okay here, simply because it is location details - whereas it more i portent to have consistency to e.g. the characters. Also the setting details are not the main focus of attention here, which is why I like the slight out-of-focus effect on this version of the horseman image. The tile pattern on the floor is (a simplified version of) the real floor. I created it in straight plan view, and then distorted it for perspective effects in this and another panel. I put this on it's own layer in that teal colour, and then bucket filled with an off white to take the pattern down a bit. I then turned areas around the central circle back to white to focus on the figures - reading the in the traditional (Western) direction from left to right, it seems to lead us round the first three figures, and then follow the second three exiting the scene via the bottom of the panel. ,I've been working, over this story (and following feedback on the previous one) on keeping my ink lines consistent in thickness. This is another thing that was easy in MS4, seems to me bizarre in MS5. I normally ink on vector layers, apart from anything else it makes it easier to erase whole lines, which I often need to do, as I work over sketches in ink without doing finished pencils. Unless there is some obscure route that has escaped me, MS5 will only allow the 'Correct Drawing Line' function on Raster layers. Apart from not suiting my approach, that seems counter-intuitive as it would logically seem easier to adjust a line that is already a mathematical (i.e. Vector) formula, and it worked on the earlier version, so why not here!? The control of how to adjust the line is also less user friendly. I felt my lines in the lower left panel were perhaps too thin, so I duplicated the relevant image and rasterised it, however even choosing what seemed to the most minimal 'Thicken' setting of 1.1, it seemed to almost double the weight of my lines, to the pint that they look almost to heavy. It works okay on the left figure because of the relatively dark colouring, but is more noticeable on the right, yellow figure. It may be I can go back and revert to my original lines for that figure only.
In the lower panels I made the background slightly darker to contrast with the pale skin and clothes, so it doesn't quite match the main panel, however I am proposing to add some lighting and toning effects, perhaps light coming from the window, that should mitigate this. I've still to update the lettering on this page. This first page of the story, is useful to examine in progress, as it captures a number of the aesthetic/process decisions. I'm fairly pleased with the colour palette on this - it's set in the same location, so it was easy to stick to the palette I created for page 2 (the first I coloured). A number of bit part characters appear on this page, and I had to give them distinctive hats and colour schemes. I wondered at first if the bright red of the first character was too attention grabbing, as I want people to focus on the character, who is the protagonist.I would have changed it, but his clothes denote a military officer, which I thought made sense as the first witness of the battle Uccello is about to paint. Hopefully that fact that we are seeing the protagonist face-on, and his reappearance with different witnesses in the other two panels, establishes that he is the one we are more interested in.
This page introduces the idea of imagined images from the battle scene and Uccello's portrayal of it. I think it is helped here by the fact that the witness is describing events that the artists is trying to visualise, and hopefully this will let readers accept this device in subsequent pages. I made the imagine image fairly translucent in the first panel (this still needs some tweaking, then mores solid in the second panel, and more clearly in colour in the third (though still paler than the colours of the 'real' scene). I will probably want to put some texture over this scene, and possibly the whole comic, but I'll make that a separate post. I have changed the lettering from my initial historic looking typed serif font to the hand-lettering style Alex Toth font. It was the least jarring hand-lettered font I could find, although when I first tried it it seemed a bit heavy for my relatively fine drawn lines, however here I have dropped it down a font size to &, which seems to help that. One issue visible on this page, before and after changing font is different spacing on different bits of text. This appeared to be a result of importing text from my earlier attempt at this story in Manga Studio 4, which seems to have wider spacing between the letters (seen in the top right text in panel 1). The seeing the two styles side-by-side, the wider spaced version looks to me better and easier to read - however I haven't as yet worked out how to change the other text to match that. The medieval style of balloons are from my first version. I haven't decided how to do the final balloons, but I think this style works with the new font. I don't think the placing of the thought bubble in the last panel works - it may just need to block less of his face - though this could be helped by using a rectangular caption box. Feeling unwell, with a virus, I’ve been at home much of the past week, and working on colour flatting, as it seemed the least demanding thing to do. After discussion with the tutor, I had planned to concentrate on getting the last few pages drawn and inked, and to do all the colour in a block, but I don’t feel up to doing anything else, and in any case, I prefer drawing in my studio, which helps me ‘get into the zone.’ I had previously coloured one page (see post below about lettering), and established a coherent colour palette, though that was in a single location, with only two characters, so different colours would be required to make other characters and locations clearly identifiable.. I aimed to make my process more efficient, and so faster. I googled to see if there was a way to save colour palettes, on Manga Studio, and found that there is. At first I tried saving all the colours in a single palette, but after doing a few pages there were too many colours, and in particular similar ones, that it became unworkable. Then I started creating separate palettes: for a specific location, then one for characters' clothing, etc. This helped, though I can still have to move between palettes, even within a single panel. It has proved a slower process than I’d hoped. I was regretting putting tiled floors in so many panels, thinking that would make it time-consuming to colour, but in fact those were the easiest bits. What proved far more time-consuming and generally troublesome were the freehand drawings. In the interest of creating smooth, lively lines, I often don’t join them up - I simply think it looks better (at least on the inked pages). However, this does create issues when using the bucket fill tool, whatever the close gap setting: at best you get a slight bulge through the gaps in the outline, that requires erasing. I have started trying to fill any gaps in outlines with a marker of the fill colour, before using the bucket fill tool, however even this is rarely 100% effective, so I have to go round erasing the leakage. Unfortunately, when I add an adjacent colour it often leaks in the opposite direction, so I have to do much of this over again. I have tended to start with the figures, though I’m thinking now it might be easier to do the backgrounds first, and just fix any bleed when colouring the figures. In tends to be the earlier drawings, done in Manga Studio 4 and the Wacom Intuos, and with a fair amount of vector correction on the pen lines that are the most difficult. The later ones done in MS 5, an using my iPad and Apple Pencil, are generally more joined-up - I think because it’s easier to lean into (and so better control) the line with the iPad. In any case, the later drawings are easier to bucket fill, and it’s useful lesson for future projects. Having used green/blues for the walls in the first scene (Uccello’s home studio), I wanted to find a different colour for Salimbini’s room where Uccello is working on the commission. Another consideration is to avoid using anachronistic colours: certain blues, for example, were so expensive, that even an extremely rich man would not use them to paint a room. I thought of crimson or fuschia to suggest passion, as it’s a bedroom for newlyweds, however, both of these would be too close to Uccello’s jacket colour, which is taken from the only known portrait of him. Initially I used a pale peachy colour intended to look like fresh plaster, however it was too close to adjacent colours, particularly the off-white of Rocco’s shirt, and faces (Figure 1), so I toned this with a little black, to be darker than faces, which I think is an improvement. Figure 2 (above) and Figure (below), are two consecutive pages, which actually take place much later, that Figure 1 (top), though are in the same location, and mirror the earlier page. Although it may be improbable, I kept all the characters in the same clothes (and so colours) for recognisability. The sticking to relatively flat colours, is part of reflecting my subject's style, though I will be judiciously adding some tone, and am exploring the addition of found/treated textures - which will be the subject of a separate post. The battle scenes in the background, are 'imaginary' (and in this case metaphorical of the conflict between the characters). These are probably not the final versions. I hid them when creating the inks layer, so I can separately change them later. I thought it was easier to focus on the main drawings and work on the imaginary parts as a set, in order to ensure consistency of style. This is important when I have so many brush and pencils options - I have used methods, e.g. for Uccello's pencil drawings in pages 11 and 12, and can't now remember what tools and settings I used.
It's worth noting that when I open pages to colour them, I also doing any necessary completions and corrections. For example, half of this page was originally done in MS4, where I had mastered a certain way with the vector line correction. It's noticeable here on the large images of Rocco (on the left) - I liked it there and wanted to keep it - this is the first time we see Rocco in close up, whereas the images of Uccello were too different from other pages. To ensure consistency, I completely re-inked panels 1 and 2, and Uccello from panel 3. This then provides an example of how I am refining pages as i come to colour them. I'll post in ore detail about this for page 17, a few posts above. I've been trawling through fonts, and shortlisted these ones. They may have their uses, but having tried them, I don't think they'll work for comics lettering. |
AuthorGraham Johnstone ~ Master of Design - Comics and Graphic Novels student 2016-17 Archives
August 2017
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