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TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina

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VOLUME TWO

TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

51795

BEST OF

MIKE MANLEY, EDITOR

The Best Of DRAW! Volume Two

The Best of DRAW!, Volume Two compiles material from the sold-out issues #3 and #4 of DRAW!, the professional “How-To” magazine on comics and cartooning! Featured here are tutorials by, and interviews with, the top artists in the comics industry: ERIK LARSEN (savage penciling), DICK GIORDANO (inking techniques), BRET BLEVINS (drawing the figure in action, and figure composition), KEVIN NOWLAN (penciling and inking), MIKE MANLEY (how-to demo on Web Comics), DAVE COOPER (digital coloring tutorial), and more! Learn from the pros as each artist presents their work step-bystep, conveying valuable tricks and tips along the way as it evolves to finished form. It’s a must-have for both beginning and experienced artists, as editor MIKE MANLEY assembles this unprecedented wealth of information, including over 25 new pages of never-before published material on storyboarding! Cover by KEVIN NOWLAN!

THE THE

ISBN 1-893905-58-6

STEP-BY-STEP LESSONS & INTERVIEWS BY TOP PROS IN COMICS, CARTOONING, & ANIMATION!

THE BEST OF DRAW! VO L U M E T WO Edited and designed by Mike Manley Front cover illustration by Kevin Nowlan Proofreading by Eric Nolen-Weathington and John Morrow

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 www.twomorrows.com • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com First Printing • August 2006 • Printed in Canada ISBN: 1-893905-58-6

Trademarks & Copyrights All contributions herein are copyright 2006 by their respective contributors. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if work-for-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in said artwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; and said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied. Azrael, Batgirl, Batman, Brainiac, Demon, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Joker, Jonni Thunder, Kung-Fu Fighter, Lobo, Man-Bat, Mary Marvel/Shazam, Phantom Lady, Sarge Steel, Speedy, Supergirl, Superman, Wild Dog, Wonder Woman TM and © 2006 DC Comics • Absorbing-man, Angel, Bucky, Captain America, Captain Marvell, Colossus, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Forge, Iceman, Iron man, Katie Pride, Mr. Fantastic, Nova, Sleepwalker, Spider-Man, Storm, Sub-mariner, The Hulk, The Human Torch, The New Mutants, The Thing, Wolverine TM and © 2006 Marvel Characters Inc. • Major Damage TM and © 2006 Chris Bailey • Dr. Direct © 2006 Brooks Instruments • Stephanie Starr © 2006 Mike Friedrich and Dick Giordano • Black Pete, Clerks the animated series, Hercules, Kim Possible, Nessus TM and © 2006 The Walt Disney Corporation • John Carter of Mars TM and © 2006 The Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate • Dalgoda © 2006 Strnad and Fujitaki • The Savage Dragon © and TM 2006 Erik Larsen • The Phantom TM and © 2006 King Features Syndicate • Aliens Havoc © 2006 Dark Horse Comics • Aliens TM and © 2006 20th Century Fox • Vampirella TM and © 2006 Harris Comics • Samurai Jack TM & ©2006 Cartoon Network • Tom Strong and Jack B. Quick TM and © 2006 America’s Best Comics LLC. This entire book is © 2006 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders.

Dedication This collection is dedicated to my best buddy in the whole world, Bret Blevins, whose years of support, candor, friendship, quest for knowledge, hard won skill, and love of all art within and beyond the pages of DRAW! magazine have made the journey through life, work, and up Art Mountain define in spirit and deed, the truest meaning of friend! Acknowledgements I’d like to thank Erik Larsen, Dick Giordano, Dave Cooper, Kevin Nowlan, Chris Bailey, Ande Parks, and Paul Rivoche for giving of their time, and sharing their knowledge and love of the medium of comics. I’d also like to thank all of the loyal retailers, and you, the fan and regular customer of DRAW!—without your continuing support, we wouldn’t be here.

THE

BEST OF

VOLUME TWO

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY MIKE MANLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 STORYBOARDING 101 A NEW TUTORIAL BY MIKE MANLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 PENCILING & INKING BY KEVIN NOWLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 SKETCHBOOK BY BRET BLEVINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 COLOR SECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 DIGITAL COLORING TECHNIQUES BY DAVE COOPER . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 WEBCOMICS BY MIKE MANLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 ANIMATION BY CHRIS BAILEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 INKING BY DICK GIORDANO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 REVIEWS OF MARKERS AND PAPERS BY ANDE PARKS . . . . . . .90 FIGURE DRAWING BY BRET BLEVINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 PENCILING BY ERIK LARSEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 COMPOSING FIGURES BY BRET BLEVINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136

BONUS FULL-COLOR SECTION! Featuring Dave Cooper’s digital coloring techniques (page 50) and Mike Manley’s webcomics (page 54)!

TECHNIQUE

KEVIN NOWLAN

DRAWING THE LINE WITH KEVIN NOWLAN Only a handful of artists in every generation come along and turn heads, grabbing the attention of everyone else working in their medium, and certainly Kevin Nowlan is one of those artists. From his early fan-artist days to his early work for Marvel and DC to his Eisner Award-winning work on “Jack B. Quick” with Alan Moore for Tomorrow Stories, Nowlan’s lush work has set high standards and influenced many. Draw! Editor Mike Manley spent a late spring day interviewing Nowlan from his Kansas home, talking craft and revealing some of this popular artist’s work habits and techniques.

DRAW!: Why don’t we just start right off in the beginning and have you fill us in on your childhood and your early interest in art and comics.

KEVIN NOWLAN: I was born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas. I’m the youngest of six kids.

KN: I’d say around 1963 through 1968. I remember CARtoons magazine and some of those black-and-white horror magazines. Mostly DC comics like Batman, Blackhawk and some westerns. DRAW!: What were some of you favorite books and artists?

DRAW!: What year? KN: 1958. DRAW!: Did you grow up reading comics? KN: Oh yeah. My older brother always had a steady supply. DRAW!: What years were this and what was your brother into reading?

26 THE BEST OF DRAW!

KN: Batman, Superman, Metal Men, Teen Titans, Archie. When I was ten I got the first issue of Angel and the Ape and it was my favorite book for a long time. Gorillas, GoGo Girls and Bob Oksner’s art... what’s not to like? DRAW!: At what age were you aware of wanting to become and artist? KN: Very young. Before I started school. My mother used

TECHNIQUE

KEVIN NOWLAN

to try to keep me quiet in church by giving me a pencil and paper. “Here’s how to draw a rabbit... first you make two circles, like a snowman.” DRAW!: Was this encouraged at home? KN: Yes. DRAW!: So your mom was an artist? Was art something appreciated or done in your home?

KN: No, as far as I know, she just knew how to draw that one thing. My brother, Mike was a real artist. He drew hotrods, monsters and flying saucers. He did at least one really beautiful oil painting in high school. I used to love to look over his shoulder and watch him draw. He said later that no one ever encouraged him so he didn’t stick with it. But I wasn’t drawing because of the encouragement... I drew because I loved it. I would see him drawing, or notice a really cool cover on a DC comic and I would have to scrounge up some paper and draw. I filled up a huge sheet of butcher paper with a scene of Batman and Robin fighting Nazis. DRAW!: So there was, despite what your brother says, some encouragement at home? KN: I guess so. I remember comments here and there from my parents and my sisters. They’re also pretty creative... although out of the four of them, only one ever put any serious effort into drawing and painting. DRAW!: Did you have any formal art education or attend any art schools? What did you do there? KN: Yeah, but I didn’t really learn anything that relates to working in comics. I feel like I really just figured out a lot of this stuff on my own. I didn’t know anyone who could teach me how to draw a figure or what tools to use for inking. I just assumed I’d have to teach myself all of that stuff. I learned some basic information about printing because of a part time job I stumbled into. When I was 12, I started working at the local weekly newspaper as a “printer’s devil.” In the old days, that meant that you were an apprentice. In 1970 it meant that I swept the floor and could help myself to all the paper scraps that I wanted. They were still using the old sheet-fed letterpress with lead type. The place really looked like it had been frozen in time since 1890. If you’ve ever seen one of the old Linotype machines, you know what I mean. After the paper was printed, I would gather up the type, melt it down and pour it into long lead bars called “pigs.” They hung on the

NOWLAN: This is me trying to be a “serious” comic book artist. Lots of little lines and textures.

Linotype machine and were gradually melted to make the new “lines-of-type.” Once this had been state-of-the-art technology, but by the 1970s it was almost completely obsolete. I was able to see all of this just before it vanished from the face of the earth. DRAW!: Wow, that’s great. Another one of the things you do well and are noted for is your lettering and logo design, like THE BEST OF DRAW! 27

WEB COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

THE DOCTOR IS IN DRAW! EDITOR MIKE MANLEY GIVES A STEP-BY-STEP ON PRODUCING THE ADVENTURES OF DR. DIRECT WEB COMIC STRIP

54 THE BEST OF DRAW!

THE EVOLUTION OF A CHARACTER

n the face of it you wouldn’t think precision mass flow or liquid processes sound like they would be very interesting subjects, unless you were an engineer or a scientist of some sort. Well this was the problem a local ad agency Praxis Communications wanted solved when they approached me early last year, and inquired about me producing an Internet comic strip for their client Brooks Instruments. Brooks makes a device called Quantim, which they wanted to try and push in a different and unique way. They felt that a comic strip would be the way to go. Maybe make it a bit more fun, and make their product stand out in the crowd. So after a bit of back and forth with the agency, they settled on the idea of doing a weekly web-based comic trip featuring Dr. Direct, a sort of goofy scientist type. Each week the Doctor, aided by his faithful dog Kepler and his bird Gaspard, would ride to the rescue of some scientist in distress on his motorcycle. Praxis had been producing short promo films and video bits using a live action Dr. Direct (sans dog and bird) helping technicians and scientists in trouble by introducing them to Brooks’ Quantim device. Advertising agencies have been using comics and comic strips to sell products for decades. We all remember the Hostess Fruit Pie ads in Marvel and DC comics featuring our favorite heroes defeating the nefarious villains with the irresistible golden flaky crusts and delicious fruit fillings. The newspaper Sunday Funnies section had long been full of very similar ads hawking dish soap, tooth polish, candy and even cigarettes! Yes, while Jack and Jill read the Sunday comic section, they also got to read comic strips drawn by agency artists depicting the Smooth of Phillip Morris cigarettes. Oh, how times have changed. Many famous cartoonists and comic strip characters also lent their four-color salesmanship to help Madison Avenue sell products to the millions of comic readers every week. The first stage was to get the designs for the characters down and develop the

THE FINAL DESIGN

Working from the visual reference of the actor who portrayed Dr. Direct in the videos, I proceeded to do a series of rough designs of the characters. There were certain requests made by the client. They wanted the dog to be similar to the dog Grommet from the Nick Park, Wallace and Grommet films. They also wanted the Doc to have a sort of smart-aleck bird. I started out just doodling rough and fast. The Doctor was easy since I already had a visual reference to work from. I referred the client to my website and they asked for a style similar to the more cartoonish or animated look of some of the work I had featured there. One of the technical concerns I wanted to lick right away was the web-based format. I did a series of designs of the Doctor, and really pushed for the version with the “dot” eyes which luckily the agency and client both liked. I wanted the Doctor to have a slightly childlike appearance and I feel that doing things like “dot” eyes is a lot of fun. I was also drawing inspiration from cartoons like the Jay Ward style (Rocky and Bullwinkle as well as the old Captain Crunch ads) and cartoonists like Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace) and his clear and elegant line style. I felt that type of approach would work well and be fun to do.

WEB COMICS

THE FINAL DESIGN

ABOVE: After the Doctor was done I worked next on his canine cohort, who is actually the brains of the outfit, Kepler. I started sketching, doodling. I initially wanted to keep him looking like anything but Grommet and went for a sheepdog type look. But I ended up coming around to a smother look.

THE FINAL DESIGN

MIKE MANLEY

format. The agency had a writer already lined up that they had worked with before. The writer was an old Marvel Comics fan and looked forward to working on something probably a little more outside of his usual milieu. His writing was pretty sharp, witty and more to the point he did a very good job of conveying the technical aspects and “the pitch” of the Quantim device, something that is frankly pretty hard to do and make funny. One of the first things I had to do was get everyone on the same page as to style and format. What worked best for the clients needs vs. artistic considerations and format. I gave the agency a little crash-course in comics and web comics. Though most people have read the comics and funnies, even very talented people often don’t have any clue how comics are made. So once we were all on the same page we came up with a format that would solve a few big criteria, readability, and easy download/ file size. At 72 dpi and with the amount of copy that would be required I realized that at times the visuals were certainly going to be taking second place to the copy. Thus a simple clear easy to read style was a must. Also the simpler the style, the easier (in theory) the strip would be able to produce every week. I already had experience in doing web comics from my own web strip G.I.R.L. Patrol (www.actionplanet.com). I had learned through trial and error the differences between regular print comics and the web. You just don’t have the resolution to do detail at the small file size that the strip would need to be to load into the viewers web browser without a long download time. One of the things I enjoy the most about working on web comics is the color and color combinations you can get in RGB as opposed to print CMYK. You can get really intense colors; color combinations right next to each other that would be impossible in print. The client also wanted the strip available to print out so a version of the strip was converted and prepared by the agency to be downloaded via PDF in Adobe Acrobat. This way fans who like the strip could print it out and pin it up at work. You could have your cake and eat it too. After settling on a color scheme for each character, I made a small color palette for each character in Photoshop, which sped up the coloring process. I kept the palettes open when coloring the characters, holding down the option key to quickly sample the desired color and using the paint bucket to fill in selected areas.

ABOVE MIDDLE: The bird Gaspard was the easiest, since He was a parrot. I can’t help but hear comedian Gilbert Godfried’s voice in my head when reading his dialogue. I wonder why? The goal was always to make the silhouettes of the characters read very cleanly since they would at times have to be quite small in the panels to accommodate the copy. RIGHT: This is the final design of the Doc and gang that was approved by the client. ABOVE: The palette I made for each character to speed up the coloring process.

THE BEST OF DRAW! 55

From the editor of

Magazine comes me Thief of Ti

HOW TO DRAW COMICS

From Script To Print

From initial idea to finished comic, WRITE NOW! Magazine Editor-In-Chief DANNY (Spider-Man) FINGEROTH and DRAW! Magazine Editor-In-Chief MIKE (Batman) MANLEY show you how it’s done in this featurefilled DVD! See a new character created from scratch, and watch a story drawn from roughs, to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering!

120 minutes, packed with Bonus Features!

Great On Its Own, This DVD Is Also The Perfect Companion ToNOW!/DRAW! ThIS BOOK! Crossover! WRITE Companion Piece To ThePiece

NOW SHIPPING DIRECT FROM TWOMORROWS! $35 US Postpaid Price Includes US Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Copy for Surface Mail ($7 Per Copy Airmail).

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

PENCILING

ERIK LARSEN

THE SAVAGE PENCIL OF

ERIK LARSEN

One the cusp of the 10th anniversary of The Savage Dragon, (issue #100, approaching Jack Kirby’s historic numbers on the ’60s Fantastic Four) Draw! Magazine Editor Mike Manley catches up with Erik Larsen. The only Image creator still drawing his title since the first issue (without a fill-in), Larsen gives forth on technique, drive, commitment and Jack Kirby in this funny and frank interview with one of the most dynamic creators working in comics today.

DRAW!: I’d like to start off and ask how you go about approaching your work. Since you both write and ink the Savage Dragon, how do you start? Do you work up roughs or layouts from your script or plot and then transfer the art to the final board? ERIK LARSEN: At this point I’m going right to the boards and start drawing but I tend to reinvent the wheel every so often. There was a long period where I was drawing out the comics on 81⁄ 2" x 11" paper folded in half and blowing them up. I’ve done thumbnails at various other sizes as well. But I get bored if I keep doing things the same way over and over. I’ll do something

for a while and switch. I’ll talk to somebody and they’ll tell me how they work and then I’ll try it out to see how it works for me. These days I’m going right to the boards. It keeps changing. One of the things I like about going directly to the boards is the mistakes that result. If you plan things out too much in advance, if you figure everything out and adjust things there aren’t those wonderful “happy accidents” that you get when you just dive right into it. Your work can get very stiff and restrained when you’re doing too much preliminary drawing, I find. DRAW!: When you said you were blowing them up, what were you doing? Were you blowing them up and then tracing them on an art-o-graph, or tracing them on a light box? EL: A light box. I’ve got a photocopy machine in the room with me at all times. [chuckles] So it makes life easier. And I’ve got a light box so I can do such things as go over and blow it up THE BEST OF DRAW! 113

PENCILING

ERIK LARSEN

exactly. I can do things where I’m doing sketches in my sketchbook. “Oh, that turned out really cool. I should use that as a cover.” And then blow that up. DRAW!: Do you keep a sketchbook?

EL: Yeah, but it’s really out of date. I started right after our house had burned down. At that point I had all these comics that I had done as a kid, and after our house burned down, I didn’t have any of them anymore. So I thought, “I’ve got to put down on paper all of the characters I can remember now.” DRAW!: Oh, wow. EL: [laughter] I was basically, “How did that cape go?” Stuff like that. So I tried to get it down. Once the whole Image thing started up, it was kind of important for me to keep the sketchbook so I could figure things out before I started my book. At this point, I’ve been doing it on and off, and I’m confident enough in the work that I do that I’ll just design something on the page for the most part. There’s not much in the way of preliminary stuff at all. DRAW!: So you don’t tend to work up little model sheets of the characters at all? EL: No, never. Never. The best model sheet I ever get would be like, “Here is a front view.” But I never would go, “Here he is from the front, here he is from the side, here he is from the back.” Not at all. I just sort of... pray that they work. [laughter] DRAW!: Then you turn them around and go, “Oh, wait, that looks weird!” EL: Yup. And sometimes you design things and you go, “Really, this stinks. This character with spikes on the inside of his legs is going to have to walk.” You know? “Oh! What do you know?” I have a character named the Kid Avenger who has spikes right on the insides of his legs pointing toward each other. And whenever his legs are apart, you can see that, and whenever his legs are together, somehow or other they work fine. DRAW!: I see, nano-technology or something. The magic of comics. EL: Yeah! They either shrink into his leg or... they’re just never drawn that way. Nobody’s ever written in and said, “Wait a minute! This doesn’t work at all!” I actually think maintaining some of that magic is important. Comics are drifting to a point where we can no longer buy that Clark Kent could hide a big red “S” under a thin white shirt and the drive to make these books believable takes away from the fun of them, I think. The Hulk was exposed to Gamma Rays during a bomb test—that’s GREAT! I mean, I watch the Powerpuff Girls and I’m right there, you know? Sugar, spice, everything nice plus Chemical-X equals little girls with superpowers! That works for me! This burning desire to give Spider-Man an updated origin and make

114 THE BEST OF DRAW!

all of these things “work” takes away from the fun. Super-hero comics are supposed to be fun. Having radiation give you hair loss and diarrhea may be more realistic but it’s not that entertaining—unless it’s Dung, of course! If you give the runs to a villain it’s a hoot and a half! DRAW!: That’s one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about your work, too, is that there’s obviously a sense humor at work. EL: [laughter] There has to be. DRAW!: Now that you’ve been doing the Savage Dragon for a long time, 10 years, you’re up to issue 102, 103? EL: I’ve done 102, 103 issues, something like that. I’m actually working as we speak on issue 99, but there were about five issues of material that predated starting up the series at Image, so there’s been more work done than that. At this point I’ve done, I dunno, 2200 pages of the Dragon, or more. And I don’t sell any of it, either, so I’ve got ungodly piles of the stuff. [laughter]

PENCILING

ERIK LARSEN

Marvel on Spider-Man, etc., and you left, formed Image and started working on the Dragon, did you change your process at all, since now you were in charge of writing the stories and pacing and everything? EL: It’s much more half-assed, if that’s what you mean. [laughter] DRAW!: So you are less formal? Would you plot the whole issue out, or would you sort of leave things loose to kind of figure out as you went along? EL: I plot to generally page by page. And it’s generally the numbers 1-22, and it has all of points I want to hit. If there’s some important dialogue, I’ll put it in there just to remind me of it. And then I’ll go to draw it and change every damned thing. [laughter] If dialogue occurs to me while I’m drawing I’ll scribble it on the page to remind me when I’m scripting. DRAW!: So when you start drawing on the boards, you work directly, breaking down the story page by page from the plot? Do you draw in non-photo blue or in HB pencil? Is this how you work? EL: Yeah, HB. All these school pencils with erasers on the ends. THE SAVAGE DRAGON © 2006 ERIK LARSEN.

DRAW!: Oh really? EL: Yeah. DRAW!: So you’ve got a big pencil sharpener there? No lead holder, or mechanical pencils?

LARSEN: (Left) Typical underdrawing for a Dragon page. I ink this directly. Sometimes I’ll tighten up faces or hands a bit (if needed) but most of the time I just jump right in there (above) and start slapping down ink.

DRAW!: That’s great, though. A lot of creators don’t get to have a complete run of their work from the beginning to the end on a character. Most artists get back only a percentage of their work from the books they do. The artists from the old days, the Golden Age or the Silver Age, they didn’t get back anything, or rarely. It often got cut-up. The exceptions might be if you were a strip artist, then you usually got to keep some of it. Although even a lot of those artists didn’t keep the originals because they never thought they would be worth anything. EL: Yeah, it doesn’t or didn’t have any value. DRAW!: Now some of that art goes for a hundreds, thousands of dollars. It’s amazing. Now, when you were working for

EL: [chuckles] It’s great! I was using a harder lead earlier on and I just got tired of it. I was tired of it digging into the paper and having to erase it and not being able to erase it real easily and all that stuff. So I just thought, “screw that.” Just let me go with this squishy thing here. Just drawing it with lipstick. [laughter] You can really fly with a soft pencil. DRAW!: So you go straight through... you pencil the entire issue? EL: Generally, I try to. But the last few months, I’ve been getting about halfway through and then sending off those pages and then scripting them and then doing the second half, another batch. But generally I like to sit down, pencil the whole bloody thing, send it off... and generally what I would do is lay out the whole issue in one or two days.Very rough circle-for-a-head type stuff. And then I would send it off, script it that night, script like half the book. Stay up until, like, three in the morning scripting it, doing balloon placement. Then Chris Eliopoulos would get the pencil boards on that next day. He would letter however many pages he could do that day, then send them back. So during the day that he’s lettering that first bunch, I’m scripting the rest of it. The next day I’m done scripting and I get the pages THE BEST OF DRAW! 115

FIGURE DRAWING

136 THE BEST OF DRAW!

BRET BLEVINS

FIGURE DRAWING

BRET BLEVINS

COMPOSING FIGURES Composing figures in groups in essentially a multiplication and combination of the principles discussed in previous DRAW! articles—particularly silhouetting. When grouping several figures you must choose a dominant character (or characters), and arrange the secondary figures to support him, her or them. I’ve assembled a set of examples and explained their structure and design—you’ll see that there are many approaches to establishing clarity and controlling the viewer’s focus. The diagrams vary in the compositional elements they explain—lines or shapes ending in arrows indicate “eye flow” and accent the controls or aides that direct the paths a viewer’s eye follows when looking at an image. Other shapes and lines indicate balance, placement, scale, rhythm or a combination of these elements. In some of the examples I’ve used words to describe the narrative motivations of the composition and left the analysis of visual mechanics to you. Silhouetting is so fundamental to good composition we’ll revisit it here—each figure you draw should scan or “read” clearly as a flat pattern—a simple device for achieving this is to insure each pose can be understood as a solid black shape—it takes only a moment to verify this in a rough doodle, or by actually laying a piece of tracing paper over a figure and blacking in its contour. (Or just outlining it, though the black is more vivid.) Even though interior definition and detail can explain a poorly silhouetted figure (or any other subject), a composition will always be stronger and more satisfying if each element in it can be scanned as a flat shape. Poor shape clarity of any part of a visual composition weakens its force, much as a sour note or out of key instrument spoils a musical composition. Here are a group of silhouetted poses of figures randomly selected from the following demonstration pages—as you look through the article see if you can find them and notice how effectively their clarity as a flat pattern compliments and strengthens the entire composition.

THE BEST OF DRAW! 137

FIGURE DRAWING

BRET BLEVINS

The monster is an amateur actor grabbing an amateur actress on a cardboard set, hence the coy body language and the unimpressive background. the composition is structured over an “X” shape to keep the viewer’s attention focused on the odd characters

Once again, character motivation is the starting point of any figure composition—what is this person (or group) like? Kindly, indifferent, cruel? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Are they scared? Angry? Delighted? Nervous? Confused? Worried? Each characteristic or combination dictates a different treatment, pose, acting, and of course—composition. Here are a few images and detailed explanations of their structure. When composing action decide what the narrative or emotional point of the scene is and design accordingly. The variety of possibilities here are as endless as the range of human emotion—these examples represent just a sampling of the endless amplitude of body language and dramatic situation human (or other) beings can express and experience. 138 THE BEST OF DRAW!

FIGURE DRAWING

BRET BLEVINS

Panel 1: She throws a smoke bomb in front of her assailant— most of the main compositional lines direct attention to the burst. Panel 2: closer as the unseen director calls “cut”—the sudden change in both characters’ attitude tell us the conflict is fake. the horizontal shape of the panel shows the pace a bit, too. Panel 3: wide to reveal the college movie set, the cameraman and director.

Panel 4: the director and actress have dialogue here—he speaks first, then she complains about the stench of the smoke, but a third key story point is the cameraman’s exhausted yawn. careful silhouetting explains each in proper left-to-right reading order. Panel 5: as she walks by she chastises the groggy yawner, who is also her boyfriend, though she is annoyed with him. Her tilting, finger prodding figure looms over his and crowds him down into the corner of the frame—the heavy weight of the camera placement adds to his oppression and clearly communicates he’s in the doghouse.

THE BEST OF DRAW! 139

Best of Draw! Vol. 2