FAMILY part 3

Remember, you can find the link to the grahic novel >HERE<. It's s free download! Fans have surmised a great deal about how this story ties into some of the foreshadowing of COG which you can find >HERE<. Smart readers noticed that on page 3 of COG you can see Lee and Abby. They then theorised that this was foreshadowing this story.

I guess this perfectly examples the organic and coincidental nature of smart storytelling. Foz, the writer had nothing to do with putting Lee and Abby there. I put Lee and Abby in COG for two reasons. One, I had to fill two photos and didn't have time to draw new pictures. Those two shots were from SUM QUOD SUM part 2 page 2 panel 1 and 2(see side labels). Because they got so distorted and blurred in the effects we never saw the pictures clean. So I asked Annette to pull them out so we could show them off here. Secondly, they're two great friends of mine and I wanted to throw them a shout out. Two birds one stone.

Now, whether Ollie picked up on this and decided to write FAMILY including them again was because of, in spite of, or despite of these cameos is something you will have to ask him about. But regardless, what he's accidentally or deliberately done is to create some fantastic foreshadowing and a tangible link between the two stories.

Let's talk about colour, shall we? Did you know men actually see FEWER colours than women? It's to do with either them or us having more or less rods or cones. I can't remember which. So when your partner says, "Honey... which of these do you prefer" and holds up two swatches that look identical to you... don't feel bad. It's just our inferior male genetics at work. On the plus side, we apparently see better in the dark. I guess you can put it down to evolutionary gatherer (being able to tell ripe from rotten) and hunter (stalking prey in the dark) roles.

But... this was the first page where I started to figure out exactly how to colour. The order went: 2, 6, 1, 3, 4, 5 . I had to do the Nissan thing first. Then I went to page 6 cos being a splash page it makes a good warm up. After stretching my colouring muscles I moved onto page 1 and started charging through in order. Page 1 is ok, and when I finished page 5 at 4am Sunday night, I stayed up another 2 hours just to clean up pages 1 and 2. I just wanted to make sure this was perfect. If I could I would have coloured this page again. I finally figured out how to get all the muddiness out of my style and make it clean and open. Before I just don't think my work breathed. It was so dark and murky. I remember Brian Bendis saying just that and it took me about 4 years to figure out the problem. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the sharpest knife in the draw.

But here is where I stumbled across the style I wanted. I remember taking all damn day on this page (while listening to Hearts from Atlantis - the Stephen King story - I'm almost done with the Dark Tower and trying to listen to everything that ties in). I then fell into a bad place health wise. I headed to Heather's to hang out and rest. But while I was there the back of my brain was ticking- the cogs turning trying to figure out how I could do what I did faster and better. And by the evident improvement of pages 4 and 5, I think I solved that problem.

But while this page is good... it could be much better. What killed me is that the house that I drew behind Abby (see the black and white versions) is all fully coloured. the chairs have upholstery, the skirting boards are colour co-ordinated and the cabinet at the back tastefully matches the walls and floors. Then I covered it up with those damn forcefields!

I actually sent Annette an email asking her how to do the forcefields. She gave me some good outlines but I had to figure it out myself. The best advice she gave me was, "Don't stress. Make them your own." I tried to do two things with the forcefields. The first thing was give them this ripple effect when the darts hit them. Instead of just bouncing off a hard perspex shell, I liked the idea that the forcefields are like hard water. Also when Abby gets flustered they start to break down like in panel 1. But when her concentration is perfect, like panel 2 they're solid as houses.

Panel 3 I really wanted to sell Sparrow's power. I wanted it as widescreen as possible. I would have pullled further back, but I just couldn't justify it in this tiny corridor. I mean, if she can pull a column of the earth out to catch her fall out of a plane, she can tear a house down. And I really wanted to sell that this house was falling the hell apart! I hope it added a level of dramatic tension that you consciously or subconsciously processed. I wanted it as widescreen as possible. I would have pullled further back, but I just couldn't justify it in this tiny corridor.

NEXT: Claude and Abby. More effects and 3d modeling by the amazing Paul Caggegi!