Road To A [Horror] Comic: Week 7-8

The end of week 8 on this road I have chosen towards the production of a comic version of one of my short stories.

What Have I Learned So Far?

• Not everyone is interested – these posts are not doing particularly well. So why am I continuing with them? Well I came to the conclusion a while ago that I need to do things for myself and if there are people along the way that also happen to be interested, that’s a bonus. I believe the same for the fiction I write. I don’t want to be writing/posting things just to get likes/comments. That would just make it Facebook…
• Drawing is hard – I never really expected anything different. There is a lot to learn, and I had to start all the way at the beginning, with shapes, perspective and the like. Again, there are clear parallels to my writing. Putting words on a page is easy. Putting words on the page in a meaningful order is tougher. It’s a long process and one that I can only improve at by practicing.
• There are a lot of different styles – I looked at anime style, cartoon style, realistic. They all have their own charms, and I think I have an idea what my preferred style would be, I’m just not very good at it! Again, like writing, I need to find my own style. With writing, I’m a bit further along in that process and feel that I’ve developed my own voice.
• Social media saps your enthusiasm – I’m finding this particularly with regard to my drawing at the moment. I joined Instagram as it seemed the best platform to post updates on my drawing progress. It is good for that, but what I see is a lot of artists that have an awful lot of talent. Whilst it can be motivating to see some of what can be achieved, it is also depressing to know that you are nowhere near that level. What I don’t really see much of, are people learning their skills, as I am. I post what I draw, good or bad. The majority of what I see are polished pieces of art. I don’t see people that are starting out, posting their first efforts; people like me. The same is true for writing. The majority of people I follow seem to be doing really well. They have several books available to purchase and a plethora of blog followers. It’s super impressive, but also kinda soul-destroying (hence the writing for myself).

This Week’s Comic Progress

This week I started off looking at perspective. I wanted to make some of the images in the final product something more than just straight on head shots, and being as how the main cast are all seventy plus years old, I figured there would not be much dynamic action!

I also wanted to consider poses from a variety of angles. So far I’ve mostly done straight on, but when I’m still learning, I think that’s acceptable.

I also realised that my knowledge of musculature in my drawing was lacking, which is strange, as I have a degree in anatomy and physiology! So I did a few studies on arms and how the muscles fit in.

I’d like to tell you I drew that from the mirror, but I can’t. But to finish the week I wanted to recap something else I’d been working on – dynamic poses. Poses where the shoulders and hips are at different alignments. In this next image I drew a line for the shoulders and one for the hips and joined them together to see where it took me. It took me somewhere that I am half-pleased with.

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for my final offering this week, I switched back to faces and this time I took a chance on adding hair, which is not a easy as it sounds! Please ignore the lines on the paper – I was doodling at work when I drew this!

I am going to do some more work on the rough outline this week for the final version and might try my hand at drawing one or two of the panels, just to see where I am in my progress.

Thank you if you’ve made it all the way down here! Have a supernatural serial killer for free!