News on Rough Dream
I’m working on the real thing. I’m doing the so called ‘name-no-name’ or sketch storyboard of the whole serie (It should be 21/24 chapters long, 7 or 8 volmes, as I felt from the start. Each chapter should be 48 pages long - because I like having all chapter of equal lenght - typical of western comics), and I plan to pubblish it. I found open-minded publisher. I will not show and contact them until I will not finish the sketches of the whole thing and the chapter one (they need to see at least the first chapter, also I don’t want to rush), but I will let you read the first chapter for free.
This is the detailed sketch of the first page. I just wanted to see how it could turn out in a more detailed form (the resolution is still too low), and if is readable enough. I don’t have so clear ideas of the third vignette yet, but I have an idea about how it is supposed to flow. I edited this page today because captions were unnecessary, and the commentators of the wrestling company already say (underline) what is needed ( I didn’t wrote about the Key Arena, but i think is necessary).
A problem I’ve read comics have is about the coldness of pre made balloons and fonts. So I decided to use the premade balloons and fonts as base, then i will trace them, to remove the coldness (the same reason I normally tend to draw straight lines free hand).
Yesterday I’ve read an interesting study about Japanese comics (RD will follow a shonen-like storytellyng with a western-ish drawing style that will allow me to make my characters more specific and recognizable each other), and it was interesting that the mystery behind the lack of background in some vignette, and why the same-face syndrome.
The open vignette thing was rather easy to understand (open vignettes makes you feel more part of the story, but also lead the eye more easily) but I didn’t realized that
- Lack of background was to emphatyze emotions in characters - in the prototype I drew a couple of vignettes without background for this reason, but I didn’t understand the importance
- Same face syndrome is a matter of psychology. When we see people, we can see clearly their face, but we can’t see our own face (except on mirrors) and we only imagine roughly the shape of our faces. Making characters so generic is a way to force the reader to identify with them. Background characters tend to be more characterized because artists don’t want people identifying in them. On this topic I prefer my way. I always wanted to see what could be the specific face of certain characters. In some cases is hard to distinguish them. Also I’m more drawn to more specific characters. When I see a group of characters that have different faces and body types, like those thugs from a Toriyama’s comic...
...I wonder about what story each of them has to tell, and I get more curious. Characters that look the same feel more predictable.
I practice hard at drawing faces, I want my OCs from Rough Dream (but also from future comics I plan) being one different than the other, both the face and the body type. For this I draw a lot of specific people when I practice. Then I redraw them from memory, their face gets modified by the failure of human memory (But also I try to draw the faces more pleasant and readable), but at least each character has his own face, his own eyes and so on.
I will read that study again, as is very useful to me. Then i will have a clearer idea about what to do, what to keep and what to do just following my preferences.
Above - Seattle, where RD starts. Brian’s hometown has it’s own ‘mount Fuji’ on the background. It’s name is Rainier, and is also a tall, snowcapped dormant volcano. In this photos the Space Needle and the top of the Key Arena (where Brian debuts) are visible.