Sorry about the tardiness. I've had some tech issues (which have now been overcome) over the last few days. But here I am, back on track.
Page 2 is pretty straight forward. One of the toughest things was trying to maintain continuity. I'm a real stickler for continuity. As a fan I read through the previous HEROES comics and was disapointed by small continuity errors like characters not wearing the right clothing, not being in the scene and sometimes characters not looking like the characters at all etc. It wasn't until I worked under the time crunch that I understood why.
So I got the job saturday afternoon (my time) and it's set after the episode that airs Tuesday (my time). While they sent me some screen caps of that episode ahead of time, none of them had the Haitian in it. When I finally watched the episode I was shocked to see the Haitian following HRG into the room. I could have easily let it slip, but things like that bug me. He should be there! So back to page 1...
It's actually not too bad a likeness of the two characters. I wanted to try and make all the characters really look like the characters. A decent resemblance was my lowest level of acceptance. To do this under the timeframe, I had to cheat. I went through and screen capped all the shots of the characters and traced over them in Photoshop, adjusting linework as I needed to (feel free to try and play spot the photo reference). If you think this is easy, then grab a photo, trace it yourself and tell me how well you did. What doing that saved me was just being able to get the proportions on people's faces right the first time. Readjusting the lighting is a really tough thing to do, as even if you have the proportions, the structure of everyone's face is totally different. The slightest change in lighting can totally transform a likeness.The only extra thing I wanted to do was to have blood spurting out of the trucker's mouth. But Sylar (cool as a cucumber) simply tilts his hat down to catch the blood on the brim of his hat, and discards it after. That's why he wouldn't have the hat later on. But... too little too late.
As you can see, the artwork pretty much follows the layouts. I tried to use more space here as I wanted to feel I was addressing NBC's feedback (use more space!).
7 comments:
Still all looks completely awesome to me. Great job!
-- Sarah (aka Begemot Geroi)
Jason, thanks so much - these look fantastic. Great insight, too! I especially love Sylar's slightly slouching pose when he's killing the trucker. It says so much about the character, and is such a wonderful likeness of Zachary Quinto's posture.
I can't wait for the next installment!
Ryan
Well, I was about to post a comment, only to discover that Ryan has said--virtually verbatim--exactly what I had intended to say! That panel is definitely my favorite for its expressiveness.
Jason, thank you so much for sharing your work with us. It's fascinating to get a glimpse into your artistic process.
CurlyMarie
from 9thWonders.com
Thanks guys!
Even on my crappy layout the guys from NBC loved the body language in that one panel. I was a little annoyed that I didn't plan for the crop (you will notice on the colour version he's cut off), but you get to see him in all his glory there.
I've just discovered your blog and read this a few days after finishing one of those photoshop traces (I've finally broken down and bought a tablet and decided to start off by drawing a character that I hadn't drawn yet - Hiro!). It's definately not as easy as it sounds lol.
Amazing work on the graphic novels - I've never been a big fan of the comic book genre until this series came around and I've got a serious appreciation of it now. :)
hey, i love the way that you had captured Zach's way of being. i was directed to this blog from heroeswiki.com and i just want to say that this is so awesome.
Also, i was wondering if you happen to be selling any of the pages from this story as i am a personal collector, and sylar is up there with doctor doom in my book of coolness.
if possible, please contact me on my e-mail mario_c_1984@yahoo.com and we can discuss things further.
keep up the great work, i cant wait to see the new stuff. Take care!
-mario
"A decent resemblance was my lowest level of acceptance."
That's what sums up your work though, isn't it? Even in a crazy time limit you always seem to manage to do this, and I can never figure out how! I mean, it's alright doing just any old person but doing a decent likeness, then doing several and then doing several pages of them - respect.
I agree with RGS, the slouch is perfect, plus the expression of intense enjoyment while watching the result of his beer bottle onslaught. Great posture while sitting in the truck as well, plus good hatwork! I always think good hatwork is underrated, I mean you've got to get the headshape in there, capture the way that person wears hats (and Sylar has a particular way of wearing them that you have got spot on throughout Roadkill), mess with facial shadowing and try not to fudge the resemblance, as you're relying on face alone to do it. Probably the strongest page for likenesses.
I love Annette's colouring of the bottom panel, the red rays really emphasise the dynamics. I also appreciate how she is creating the impression of time passing - after the sunset of the previous page there is a beautiful colouring of dusk here, moving onto moody nightfall in the next page and then total darkness to emphasise all the headlight glamour for the truck chase.
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