ROOT & BRANCH: part 1 page 4

Oh god, I have no idea what's going on. It's all gone to hell in a handbasket! It's chaos and anarchy in a big nfi sandwich. I think I posted about the wrong artwork in my last post. All that stuff about the chase through the Congo? Well, that's supposed to be this page. So to return you to your synchronised viewing pleasure I'm going to go back and uh... comment about page 3. Cos that makes sense doesn't it? I figured the alternative would be to swap the posts around, but I figured that would just confuse regular readers even more. And I'm guessing you're already treading a little nervously down this rabbit hole, you don't really need me playing musical chairs with my posts.

I must have been so jet-lagged to let that one slip through to the keeper. How do I write about the wrong page? Don't ask. Ah well. If blogging was a Mensa test, I totally failed.

<- A solid Claire.

All right! Page 4, um 3. Christ almighty I'm an idiot. This blog is about to turn into one of those stupid Choose Your Own Adventures. You know the ones with the numbered entries that say, "If you want to go left go to page 13, if you want to eat the orc remains go to page 99, if you want to get a life go to page 42"?

No idea what I'm talking about? I'm on my own? C'mon, thrown me a geek lifeline here. Anyway, remember this post but I'm going to be directing you to the one below to check out the artwork.

<- What the hell is wrong with my Peter's?! They look really ugly. =(


PAGE 3

I really had a ball with this page. I think it's one of the best pages I've drawn. The trick here was making sure that we knew who they were attacking yet not showing the guy's (clone's) face until the big reveal in the bottom tier of panels.

PANEL 1: I particularly like Thompson and Donna in this panel. I think she looks cool and looking back on it I love all the detail on their little bluetooth headsets. I also really dig the snow. It just sells the entire panel for me.

Obviously tasers don't make this sort of visual discharge. I know if they did all my mates would have one and we'd be zapping each other constantly. It would be like some sort of version of Punk'd on 10,000 volts.

<- A Hiro saves my dwindling self esteem. Two mediocre sketches in a row saved by this one.

PANEL 2: Here's a bunch more shout outs to all the SARMY kids who helped promote my recent Orbital Comics signing. AshZ is on the cork board for sending out a email to everyone. Lee Ann (Ororo) gets a big plug for organising it all and being just so all round awesome.

I love the movement in the panel. Biance looks so light and athletic. I really dig her movement. On the far left is a homage to cricketing great Merv Hughes. I'm not a cricket fan, but the guy is an Aussie icon. Some people commented that Devin looks totally different. I had no idea he'd appeared before. I just went off Peter's design sketches keeping pretty much to what he'd drawn. I did pretty Bianca up though. He drew her in a skirt. I ended up giving her a costume change or her super power would have been to show you what colour underwear she was wearing.

And lastly, I'd like you to just ignore the clock on the right...

PANEL 3: Some people thought that Sabine has a forcefield here. As I mentioned somewhere, whether you have to decide between the company violating their one of us, one of them policy or me screwing up, you should probably go with the latter. Those bullets are supposed to be hitting the wall next to her, and I regret not drawing it in more detail.

PANELS 4-6: These panels were tough. I had to make sure that he was recognisably the same guy. If that wasn't apparent then we'd lose our whole reveal. I'm pretty confident it worked.

Ok, now come back here and keep reading!

PAGE 4

I do have the layers for page 4, but I'm only really going to show you the black and white artwork. There's a funny thing that colourists do which I guess could be called "protecting the linework" and it's something Annette is very particular about.

Basically, if she sees that I've put a bucket and a half of effort into the artwork, she will do whatever she can to make sure that the reader is aware of all the detail that I've put in. She will try and keep the visual effects to a minimum and let the artwork breathe and strut its stuff center stage. Myself? Once I'm done with the line art I couldn't give a damn about it. I pumped that little baby out days ago, time to move on! I'm going to make a great father.

<- Sylar. Much better than the last ones, but I'm still trying to channel my inner Zachary Quinto.

So this page is a great example of me spending heaps of time on the line work and drawing trees and leaves and branches and roots and vines only to cover it all up with lighting effects. I'm so irreverent about it. If I was a smarter artist I would have just not drawn the bits I was going to cover up. But we've already established that you're not reading this because you're expecting to get intellectual smacked upside the head by my genius. Hell, I can't even post in order. There are kids watching Sesame Street that would probably do a better job of this than I am. Thank god I'm not competing with any other applicants. I'd be out of a blogging job and living in a virtual refrigerator box eating digital trash from the recycle bin out the back of McDonalds' website.

LA: Day 2 in LA. I've been made really welcome at Spacedog. I'm staying at Lauren's until I organise my own place. I should really get onto that instead of posting.

HEROES: Part 3 of ROOT & BRANCH is up. You can find it from the 9th WONDERS link HERE.