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This is a weblog of one person's multi-year quest to write, draw, and publish a graphic novel. This is my story: my trials, tribulations, successes and failures. -- Robert Stradley, Weekend Artist

2005  Writings & Drawings & Characters, and Style

Writing the Story
The basic story of Amberleigh was written in 1979-1990 in interactive group think during 11 years of D&D campaigning.  I wrote the general background, and my wonderful wife, my darling daughters, and my funky friends wrote the characters and interactions.  I spent the first 4 months of 2005 working on the main story line, first documenting everything we could remember from 25 years earlier, and then sorting and sifting out ideas that would work in a single linear story arc. 

Basically the story is this:  Gwendolyn and her friends are forced by circumstances to confront greater and greater threats, until eventually they have a grand smashup with the master villain Johan ThunderCrusher.  In the process, the city-state of Amberleigh gets built,  and Gwendolyn becomes Queen, very much against her will. 

The basic theme is that power rises to match power, and the refrain is that history is written by the winners.

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Character Development
Question: How does one go beyond a single hand-drawn sketch on a character sheet and capture the essence of a personality? 
Answer: Implement the Medieval ideal that the outward body and clothes reflect the inward personality.  Identify a dominant trait and codify it, symbolize it, and then show it in each character’s face, form, and body language.  Also the clothing and accoutrements such as hats and props demonstrate better than anything the character’s career, status, and quirks.

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Light table as a tool
A light table is a fantastic tool for learning how to draw and ink.  Inking?  Work on a separate document without destroying the original.  Redraw rather than erasing or whiting out.  Try different techniques to achieve a finished product.  But using a light table for drawing?  Not so obvious, where the average teacher wants you to do it from scratch each time, often from memory. 

Drawing, I learned how:

• to get control of my hands making them go where I wanted, both in short finger movements and large arm movements, especially in laying down a single line rather than the short choppy sketchy style I learned in high school. 
• to view masses of dark and light for shading rather than always using thin lines.  
• to fill in the blanks when lines disappear, especially on outlines. 
• to adapt photo models to my characters, by changing bodies, clothes, and face but using the overall structure and position, especially in high or low angle shots.

   
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Drawing Style is kicking back
What is style and why do I care?  Couldn’t  I just get on with it and draw the darn thing?  Actually yes, if I wanted a stick figure style like “Order of the Stick” or “XKCD.”  With the story already written, I could be publishing on-line in a matter of days.  Or with cartoon style characters, I could use the characters I’ve drawn, and I could be on-line by year end. 

Unfortunately, I am hoist with my own petard.  Every time I start to draw in a cartoon style, I end up in Zen state and, when I wake up, I find myself drawing realistically again.  I’m ready to pull my hair out in frustration.  Everyone in the comic industry says to find your own style, your own voice, and then scream with it.  The only screaming that is being done is the Engineer in me screaming at the Artist in me, saying things like “Are you crazy?  Do you have any idea how far this is going to put us behind in the publishing schedule?”  Yup.  I’m officially loony tunes now.

“Gobble, gobble darlink, too much talking.”  [Edna Moles- The Incredibles.]
  
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Anatomy is now officially SNAFU
As if style isn’t enough, now I am fighting Anatomy.  When I started doing turnarounds, I was looking for a few “macnugget style” factoids.  You know, the stylistic 8th grade symbols for drawing hero bodies.  So many heads tall, so many heads wide, here's the shortcut head and body. I wanted the easy way out.  I got out my LEARN TO DRAW books from Marvel and Manga University and Manga Mania and tackled it. 

But what I got was more questions.  Why are the proportions all different?  Why isn’t the head drawn with the same connections to the neck and the same facial proportions?  What's with these eyes? Why are the muscles all drawn differently?

Can’t someone show me a simple turnaround head and body in 18 directions and be done with it? [18 = 10 in Z rotation + 8 in X rotation] 

Unfortunately, the answer most often given to ua weekend artists is:  Learn to draw first! 

[double sigh]

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