Week ten and end of compo 1! Time flies like an arrow (which translated by Bing or Google translate into French gives something like: “time loves flies (insect) an arrow”).
        Comic-wise, I don’t know if I’ve out come of WTF mode: I have realised how much work is ahead of me and I’m working hard on it – the comic, the character, wordpress security, webcomics must-dos and must-not-dos, you name it… And of course right now is the time my brain chooses for another helping of “I can’t draw at all anymore”. Well I don’t have time for this shit: I’ve got work to do! So I’m currently designing the faces of my characters in zbrush – realistic style – I’ll caricature them later.
        I’ll blog about that when I start my webcomic, so enough about this.
        Anyway, week ten. I went on using only pencil and paper.
        Glenn, as usual, gave me a thorough and very useful critic on my three pieces:

        First, the office scene. Last week he asked me to zoom in on the real action and lower the camera (I’m translating in movie language, apologies). Here is what I’ve done:

        Glenn’s comments could be summed up by “almost there, exaggerate the movement even more”, it’s true the puppets could accompany the movement of the swooning girl, the character on the right of her is useless, and the unhappy guy on the second row and his neighbours could have move movement, expressing better what they feel, and making the action of the main characters more obvious.
        The legs in the background are… to my surprise, an excellent idea: the world does not end at the border of the image!!!

        My other work in progress was the coming home of the drunk father and the protective good guy being….er…. protective of mama and baby, all this with the emphasis on diagramming space.
        I followed last week’s comments to the best of my abilities (and added thickness to doors and windows…… grrrrr … I’m so stupid sometimes). Here is the scene’s new version:

        OK, let’s tell it like it is: it now looks like mr good guy is threatening mama and child, and drunk dad is coming home either to hit her… or save her from the good guy! LOL, talk about a drawing that reads backwards!!! Imagine Michelangelo drawing a crucifixion scene in which Mary looks like she holding her son in position while they are brutally nailing His hands to the cross…. no, no, no! Must redo this for compo 2 (and the office scene too, cause it’s nearly ok… which is a more flattering reason, I confess :-D)

        As for the topic of the week, it’s a biggie: rhythm and timing!
        As a famous computer would have said: “…hmmm, tricky!”
        After much thinking I went the Mayan way (remember the Mayans? Their huge and blood soaked empire got over-taken by 200 sick and hungry Spaniards on tired horses, but today some people still read and believe their prophecies. Go figure.)
        Here is my pseudo Maya scene (and don’t email me about the historical exactitude of this sacrifice scene, or I make them into Mayans from another planet and then I have them do whatever I want!).

        Glenn spent quite some time on this one, talking to me about the big things: perspective should be different for the sacrifice rock (and the corpse at the bottom), why so many mountains when one would suffice to emphasis the chasm, also the right side of the image (beyond the head of the plummeting guy) is frankly useless.
        We’ll work again on this one and the attached topic during week one of compo two.

        Composition two start this coming week, the chat is at an unusual time due to Glenn being in Japan – in the afternoon for the US….. at 6am for Europe.
        I’ll be there, and I’ll be here too, blogging about it all. If you feel like dropping me a line, get in touch on Facebook with Anton von Flugelhorn, I’ll be happy to make new pals!

        One week-end is all I’ve got to work “only” on my comic. Next week, madness strikes again, LOL!
        I haven’t had the time to really finish any drawing during this compo 1 class, but I do feel like it has completely changed my approach to drawing: drawing is only part of a larger process, don’t make such a fuss over it, shut and draw, if the result is bad, throw it away, do another one, a hundred other ones, after all, it’s only drawing.
        I think it’s significant that the other day, I thought to myself: “hum, that kind of building seen from above…. let’s build a rough of in sketchup to see what it’s like, and where to put the camera” and my next thought was “naaaah…. it’s faster drawing it!”
        I would never ever have thought *that* only a month ago.
        The class has changed me deeply, but then it’s logical: compo is the favourite topic of the greatest drawing teacher of the planet – if you add to it my working hard, and doing what he says (he’s always right even when I don’t understand why… very unnerving at times LOL) a winning combination I guess.

        See you next week my friends, draw! draw! draw! and have fun!!

Anton aka Marie