Draw It Scan It Hate It Change it Draw It Draw It Draw Redraw It

When people have read the rough draft of my current comic, this page is unanimously picked out as a stinker. The panel layout is pretty jarring coming from the previous page, and it also just isn't that clear. The idea is that he's transforming and getting bigger. The cubes get bigger. His hand is closed; his hand is open. There's action lines around his feet.

But really, what is happening?

Back to the drawing board. First come up with some sort of transformative signifier and then figure out a layout. Some of the difficulties with the layout were that this involved a scene change from the previous page, which requires an establishing shot, the transformation had to be complete in this single page, in order to be consistent with the rest of the comic it needed to be based on a 5 panel by 7 panel grid, and there needs to be something in the background that could serve to show scale and his change in size in relation to it. I did not sit down knowing this, but figured it out as I went along.

New finished version:

The buildings in the upper panels establish a scale. There's also a lot of page area devoted to the background, which hopefully gives a sense of place. The upper panels are repeated exactly in the bottom panels (cut and pasted digitally, which does kind of feel like cheating to me). This repetition is intended to make it clear how much he has grown. His breaking of the panel borders at the bottom may reinforce his growth. It may also be stupid. I'm not sure yet. The transformation seems to work, but I think it will benefit from some color and will need a few tweaks here and there.