compo 1 week ten end of semester and cartoon fiesta

Last week of my second time doing composition 1 class, this time with only comics pages. Starting this coming week I’ll be redoing composition 2, again with only comics pages for submissions.

Time has come for a bit of reflection: my first go at compo 1&2 was tough, I really did not get what it was about, what I was supposed to do, and it showed :-c. This time I seem to have “gotten” it: composition is not an addon to drawing, composition is the final goal, art itself, and drawing is just very secondary (which doesn’t mean it gets easier, like Milt Kahl, the animator of Merlin, Bageerah and many other Disney characters used to say at the end of his career: “it does not get any easier!”. lol of course he had animation on top of drawing to worry about – but animation and drawing are tools to create composition which is the final art. Let’s just say that now I see why Glenn said several times that in other classes he was teaching us how to draw, in compo classes he teaches us how to be artists.

I never thought I could draw so much, have so many ideas on a regular basis (no waiting for the muse – get to work, the muse does not exist!).

The principal “click” quite obviously came for me when I stopped resisting my natural urge to cartoon, caricature and tell silly stories. I was holding myself back like I said in the past weeks. This doesn’t mean I’m not going to go on try and improve my drawing, next semester (coming week) on top of compo 2 I’ll be doing figure drawing 1 again (3rd time??4th??). The best my realistic drawing is, the best my cartooning will be. And the truth is cartooning is far more difficult than realistic drawing, you have to pay far more attention to gesture or everybody will find your drawing boring, you have to choose what to exaggerate, what shape to keep, what anatomical element to throw away and which to keep so that the characters still look real and have weight when they walk on the ground (yes I’m talking still drawing, not animation).

In a word I plan to learn to draw like the great masters (or close to that lol) in order to be a better cartoonist, and who knows, I may have a “serious” period in my artistic career, after all Dali did not draw melting clocks and giraffes on fire next to three legged men all of his life, he also did some amazing “classical” painting, re: his Christ on the cross seen from above done from imagination, google it you are in for a shock if you dont know that marvel!

So this week…. last week the only thing Glenn had to tell me that was negative about my page of compo was that it was a pity my characters looked so ruff when I could draw very clean neat characters as I did regularly in the head class (yes: unbeknownst to you I have been doing the head class for the 5th time alongside this compo1, and going toonish there too).

Ok, you want clean neat characters? let’s try it French-Belgian comic style (hands up all of you who were expecting “Gang Nam” style!)

here it the thing of the week, a spread, a comic page with one image taking all the space, probably the bleed too (meaning no border around it in a printed publication)

If you are into French-Belgian comic you are probably laughing, thinking that I’ve read Franquin, Tillieux.

Those characters all have a name and occupation and will appear in my upcoming comic (insane comic, of course). Only 3 were developped in the head class (the card player, waiter and lady in pink). The others I developped for this and will reuse.

Glenn laughed, said it was great story telling and that it was definitely “me”, and that is what made me the most happy, it means I have found my style (one of them who knows, there may be others).

He said all the elements are there but I could make a far more useful use (odd sentence….) by making a clear foreground that would give depth to the rest of the image. Meaning: take the card player and waiter and make them much much bigger: foreground, so that all the rest seems to happen further back, creating space for the eye of the reader and for me to better position my character (there is a hole behind the pink lady that I was very unhappy with). This would also give a clear entry point to the eye of the reader who can, as it is now, enter the image from several points equally.

I type this two days before the new semester, we’ve had a week off during which…. I’ve slept! all night and almost all afternoon! I guess the efforts I did, the resistance to my obvious cartoonish tendencies (who started singing “I’m coming out”? I heard you! :-D) and the rest of life just took all of my energies.

My webcomic script is taking shape (and getting crazier by the day), Monday, new semester. Gambarimasu! I’ll do my best, O kage sama de! thanks to your support (rough translation)

see you very soon.

Ja ne, minna san!

ps: why the sudden Japanese at the end of this posting? Because it’s my blog and I do what I want! Oh, did I forget to mention: finding my style has made me feel more assertive. Now, you know 😀 lol only kidding  guys!