HANA PART 1: 9 lives

I've decided not to blog on weekends. Too much to do, and so much more to draw. A cousin's wedding and ridiculous over-training killed me. The incredible disapointment of David Fincher's (my favourite director) ZODIAC killed the end of my weekend. Onto the art:

This was an incredibly fun page to draw, just because every panel was just so different. My main aim here was to make the lighting as different as possible between each of the scenes.

The idea behind panel one was to capture a sense of working late into the night. The yellow desklamp. The non-sensical blueprints. I wanted blueprints as complicated as possible to give us an insight into the level of complexity that Hana's brain works at.

Panel 2 was about transitions. I normally don't like moving characters right to left (the natural flow of the eye is left to right), but I felt this was needed as the eye starts on the right side (from Hana's hand in panel 1) of the panel, and then works its way over the panel to the left. I wanted to make the aeroplane journey as subtle as possible. I wanted her also to look very different. Her hair down, and in a beautiful top designed by Curlymarie. You can just make out the clouds reflected in the window. I wanted the lighting to speak of later afternoons.

Panel 3 is actually set in Hong Kong. I like to think I captured the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong quite well for the little amount of time I spent here. I felt all the drama is in the lighting and the billboards. I wanted a harsh artificial light that speaks of the decay of over-crowded hyper-urbanised cities. On the layout it's the only one I deviated from. Instead of emphasizing harsh shadows (a tool to cut time) I actually wanted to draw the reader into the detail of the scene, if only for a second to contrast it against the softer beauty of panel 4.

Panel 4 is meant to break the visual flow. I wanted serenity like a watercolour painting. Misty mountains and endless rice patties. If you look carefully there are HUNDREDS of blades of grass there that fly by unnoticed. My hand got pretty sore. The far left aligned panel is to indicate the huge amount of time and distance she has yet to go. Her body language is that of the continual travel and is meant to indicate the distance she has come. Despite the beauty behind her, all she can think of is the journey ahead.

Lastly, this is one of my favourite pictures of Hana. It's strong, stylistic lighting works well witgh the likeness. The strong blacks (always a challenge) look soft here and define her face and add to her beauty rather than detract from her femininity.

COMPETITION: I'm waiting to hear back from geoff schweiegert. If I haven't heard from him by Thursday (my time) Acidburn133 becomes the default second prize winner. Meanwhile Pngau has suggested a beautiful piece. I'm waiting to see what geoff suggests before I commit to what kara and ryan have asked for.

WHAT'S UP NEXT: I'm fixing up the first issue of Zero G. I've laid out the first 10 pages of issue 2. Done some designs also. I'm also finishing off the EMPEROR story (you can find it elsewhere here). I'm really loathing going back to my old drawing style. The stuff I designed on Hana looks so much better and is SO much faster.