FAMILY part 5

This was the last page that I coloured, and definitely my favourite. I remember that it was 4am in the morning and it had been a long day colouring both pages 4 and 5 on one day. Ironically, they're both my best pages, which is a testament to my learning curve (or how much I had to learn) and my ability to combat exhaustion.

The other reason why I like my new colouring style is that it doesn't take forever. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I wave my fairy wand and the colours appear... It's still a lot of hard work. The 4am finish would testify to that. I remember being so happy with pages 4 and 5 that I worked until 6am fixing up the other pages so that they were a little stronger to fit in with what I'd learned. I'm a perfectionist like that. While panel 1 of page 2 is definitely weak, it's an exception rather than the rule. So I can be happy with that. I'm looking forward to a higher level of consistency on my upcoming story... part 4 of Rebellion.

Ages ago I remember reading WE3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (which I highly recommend) and there's a scene where a train tumbles off a collapsing bridge. I remember needing to draw the underside of a train so I thought I'd check what Frank Quitely did for the underside. I found the sequence again to find that he'd covered the majority of the underside of the carriage with rubble and shadows. Smart. Very smart. It saved time and no one noticed or missed it. So I decided to use that same technique here. The huge chimney not only covers up heaps of tedious perspective, but it also creates a sense of depth. But it did take a fair amount of time to draw, just not a great deal of emotional effort. But that was a lot of bricks. Did I mention that was a lot of bricks?

The flag and the tree are all other examples of not only framing the scene to draw attention to what I want you to look at, but saved me drawing another couple of buildings too. See? I call it stealth cheating.

But I am particularly happy with the design of this page. I think that once you finish panel 2 the arc of their flight sweeps your eye back down to the collapsing building. I'm also not a huge fan of motion lines. Again, like Bryan Hitch I like to try and use what's in the scene to convey movement. In this case the dust, debris and dirt peeling off the forcefield as they fly to safety... not Washington. Anyone who thinks they all flew from here to Washington is crazy. They would have frozen to death. It's why I changed the girl's costumes to help sell time passing.

And while we'd never seen him do it, I thought it would be cool to give West the "donut" effect on his flight. I felt that it was such a unique HEROES visual that I just had to throw it in to remind the reader exactly which universe we're in.

NEXT: Page 6: The dilemna of sexing up friend's fiances and girlfriends.