Finished Pages

Starting putting together some finished pages for Drown (not sure about that title)(maybe Flood is better). These are really just tests to see if my ideas for how to play with and twist the 5x7 grid will work or not.

Finished page:

Sketchbook version:

I'm happy with how the paneling worked out, but unsure about the rain. I think that color will help make the page clear, but I'm also a little nervous that I might be cramming too many elements in. Complicated paneling, plus rain, plus a stormy sea, plus a mix of characters. It may all end up being noise. One possibility would be to add the rain on the computer as an after effect instead of drawing it on the page. I balk at this a little. It's not that I consider using the computer cheating, it's just that I think that there is something special about having it all done on paper.

Another one:

And the sketchbook ideas that went into it (drawn at Cambridge Common):

I made a flimsy little stencil to do the off-kilter panels (I think this is going to make laying out pages much easier):

I'm happier with this page. I think it definitely reads better and doesn't have as much of the noise that the first one had. Cutting out the backgrounds and just having the rain texture makes it read a little smoother. Still color will be important to make this one clear.

Along the bottoms of both pages, I've put in this seascape sequence (more noticeable in the second page), which I hope to continue through a number of pages, perhaps having it grow to take on another tier of panels and then another as the storm becomes more violent and destructive.

It's a start.

I listened to a lot of T. Rex - Electric Warrior while drawing these.