A New City (page 1)

Page 1 of 4. This is quite old. Sorry for delay between it and last post, it took me ages to translate, as you can see.

-Helm

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Memorybot Part 2

I take advantage of page flip to change settings. Film can do this also but not as effectively. Recent films that trained viewers in fast scene changes but it still creates some dissonance unless the director is one of the really talented ones. You can mess this up in comics as well (for example if you change scenes on pageflip but you don't do an establishing shot in the first or second panel and just assume people get that we're not were we where before). As of late I've been considering infinite canvas comics a lot and I'm trying to think of ways to have the power of page change without having actual pages to do it with. Something will come to me. Anyway, I mean to say, the change of a page is a very useful tool for the comic artist. It invites the participation of the reader to carry the story along, at their own page. The characters aren't going nowhere until you're good and ready. That more relaxed idea of how art should be paced is in start contrast to music or cinema where the time is strict and linear and if you're not paying attention you just missed something. This is why I think comics are the best medium to tell stories where smart little details and subliminal characterization make a difference.

Let's also look at the black and white version.

The painting in the futurist cafe in the first panel is a reference to Complexification. (Click on start applet to see the art of the future). This isn't so much a pop culture reference (as I don't think Complexification is pop enough yet!) but more an actual world-building point, I really do believe such algorithmically generated pieces of art will be much more vital in the future than now. Also, if you care to check out the older ZX story with the dam and the depth computation, you'll note that they're also at a show where Substrate is featured. Their opinion there on the art differs from mine as the artist, heh.

When I was drawing the black and white version of this I was actively trying to restrain my propensity towards adding little scribbly mid-tone details with a fine marker because I was thinking 'let the coloring do it'. And it did, I'm really happy I didn't overload it more than I did, although Ptoing - whom I'll have explain his process of coloring in the next post - probably suffered around the little details even as it is. I don't have much experience in making artwork that relies on color because I don't really like color comics much, heh. At least not the more literal color type. We'll discuss this later.

The exchange of words here is very calculated (I'm sorry) on the part of ZX. This isn't because he is a robot so much as it is how we all try to be robots when we have to give these sort of justifications for our actions. We think that if we figure out the exact way to phrase the hurty thing we need to say, perhaps we'll control the outcome, contain the drama and minimize the hurt. It is the testament to my emotional inexperience that in this comic, the next page to this isn't that of an emotional outburst, of the vital drama needed to diffuse an awful feeling. Instead I make the girl passively 'understand'. Things don't usually work this way in real life, yet I do not think this is a point of insincerity for me as an artist here because at the time this mode of resolution I thought was the best one. I was still holding on to being a robot as best I could.

The 'how we differ' panel is one of the best I've ever drawn, I think. I look at it and I think I did alright, as a comic artist, even if that's all I ended up doing.

Note in the black and white version how the eye on the girl on the bottom left panel is off and how Ptoing fixed that for me in the colored version. I've since learned to draw eyes a bit better but they're still totally the biggest problem I have with faces, especially with girls. I am satisfied with her weary expression though.

Next page will come when I get Ptoing to write his piece about the colors, could be sooner rather than later, as it's a silent page and I don't have to translate anything.

On other news, Vavel page is 70% done. I've worked more on this single page that I've worked on 4-5 regular pages of comics. It's a monster. It also is right on the verge of being completely nonsensical. I hope I can keep it together.

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