By the time I'm through with this, I expect you all to be much better than me. Many of you are far more artistic, and therefore can take this knowledge to much better places than I can. With everything I know, I still struggle every time.


I've talked a lot, you know some things now about basic composition and form. While I'm far from finished with those things, let's look at something I've been asked about recently.


Every illustration except for portraits need depth and every object in a depthed scene needs to observe at least rough perspective. If you move the 'camera' - the place where the picture is taken from - then you will need perspective for the 'foreshortening' of bodies and other objects in the scene.

This knowledge is pretty much invaluable in comics and is used in these two major ways:
To show an object or person in a particular light - that is to say, to make something Greater or Lesser. Show a tall building from below. Show a shy person from above. And millions of other uses to 'look down' or 'up' at a person or thing. Given all the angles one can have, there's a slew of different shades of meaning you can throw subtly on an image.

2 - To break up 'talking heads'. I'm going to talk a bit about talking heads, since it's come up.

Everybody East and West rues the talking heads. This is when a panel shows character 1's face, then the next panel shows character 2's face, then the next panel goes back basically to the first one, etc. during a conversation. While this can be effective to increase tension during an argument or quick face off of wits (or something conceptually similar), it has to be used sparingly or will make the reader start to read very quickly, perhaps too quickly for how much dialogue or information he should be absorbing.

Comics are a visual medium primarily, and the trouble with talking heads is that when the reader sees the same image over and over again, he starts to assume subconsciously there's nothing new. Comic writers and drawers have to remember that the people reading their things are primarily people off the street who are not going to notice anything clever we try to do, because our expertise leads us to try very subtle or unusual things. The average Joe does not particularly care.

Comics are no longer being written for comic afficienados who can name everybody in the industry and can trace the evolution of comics back thirty years. Just the fact that anyone really can is a testament to the bizarre nature of Western comics. The problem with the West is individuality. An artist only feels he's any good if he's 'original' this usually means going way out on a limb, usually way too far. Nobody in comics minds, though because everyone's equally familiar with the history and methods, including many of the readers. But some people can do it, others can't. This severely hampers the genre, if all there is is Indy comics and well-established corporate-owned ones. If more people could be content with being average, with a solid base of understanding the Things that Work, there would be more mainstream comics, different kinds, more to choose from and more regular people would be interested. This is why Manga have swept in, with it's (generally) lamer art and repetitive story lines I keep hearing complaints about. Yes, manga art on the whole rips the western concept of "Comics as Art" to shreds, but only in the sense of useless techniques that the really casual reader doesn't care about anyway. Comics that are readable will always be art, but Manga hide most of the art form itself from the reader, simply provoking from afar. Decent physical art is only the clothing it wears. Manga are normally very clear, and the ones that aren't are quickly tossed aside.
Of course I'll only pick the best drawn ones, or ones with a well-made story, but watching others buy comics makes me think twice about what's really important. Comics need to be less 'interesting' and more 'entertaining'. And one does that by involving the reader, not alienating him with how 'good' you are. And that's what this journal is about. If you can be inventive and do something novel WHILE being clear and mainstream, then you'll have it made. The most successful and popular succeed in this way. It's a horrendous thing to say here in the West, but being popular brings the money, and that's all that matters. Why? Because then you can do what you love without starving. Hook a fanbase then do whatever you want, and they'll love you for it.


Anyway, back to perspective. It's really important for keeping interest. A reader can't see everything in a room the way a character or you can in your head. You can use perspective and angles to help the reader grasp a location, even a room and what it really looks like. It's important to ground the reader to your location so they can easily believe they're there. I've many times felt lost because not enough was shown. I'm not sure where people are talking, and sometimes therefore why. I've seen a lack of backgrounds work unnoticeably only once, and I will get to that in a post about 'omission' and why it's actually good later on. This is another thing that only works if you know how to use it.
Once the talking heads thing starts to happen, (okay, I'm not done with talking heads) you can do many things. Let's imagine a scene. It's crucial that the two characters are on a date in a dainty coffee shop. They talk. Endlessly. But it's really important, so there's nothing that can be done about it! You're certainly not going to have them walk around, and it's even worse to start doing crazy camera angles. This is a quiet, maybe romantic scene, so too many angles is disruptive. So how to do this and not get repetitive? In real life or in a movie, a static shot might be fine, the intonation of people's words, and the subtle movements of their bodies is more than enough to sustain interest when coupled with the conversation itself. However, this is very hard to do if you don't have a very bold style (such as a Film Noir look), or a gimmick that's just that interesting to look at. Like... morphing heads or something. If you're drawing in quite a realistic way, and the topic is very textured, then you might be able to get about doing very different expressions, but I find this draws too much attention to the art itself, and the reader out of the story, especially if it's done well. The reader is not supposed to notice how awesome the art is until he's done, and thinks about it. He should be engrossed before that. Thinking about how good the art is later gives him a really good, logical excuse to buy the next one. I know it works on me.

Before we totally trash talking heads and move on to how to fix it, let's give an example that does work:

Deathnote Tennis - Written by Tsugumi Ouba, drawn by Takeshi Obata

This example actually displays the example I mentioned above, that of a battle of wits:
A very interesting work, a large part of the manga Deathnote revolves around Light Yagami, known as the killer Kira and L, sometimes known as Ryuga, such as when he enrolls in Light Yagami's school. Both different shades of genius, they play a complicated game of chess with each other as L, a mysterious detective heads the investigation against the mysterious Kira whom also no one has seen, who has the power to kill people by knowing their (real) name and face. The tennis match is little more than a physical, pared-down representation of their lives for months if not years, as they dance around each other. L suspects Light as being Kira, but can't quite catch him. An even match, they wait for each other to make a mistake. This of course means that most of this boy's manga is, in fact, talking heads, so it's interesting how artist Takeshi Obata goes about all the many words Tsugumi Ouba throws at him. A true professional. Deathnote is available domestically from Tokyo Pop and is currently up to volume 7. Scanlation services have long had all of Deathnote available for download in English, and it's been quite popular!
I remember reading this scene extremely quickly. Not only did it have a bit of the talking heads thing, it was also a tennis match, and you know how quickly this must all be happening! It's okay for them, they're thinking at the same time, but for us, we have to absorb twice as fast! The conclusion is very strong though, with half a page with the words
That we should go to the taskforce headquarters together.
and
Whoever makes the first move wins.
written boldly. In this way, even if you missed half of their logic throwing, you still get the point of all that, and was cleverly done. The mood was the important element, not how they got to their conclusion. Racing along over several pages, you can feel how fast they're thinking, and the scramble they're making to one-up each other.
Also note that each page of this fast sequence allows us to take a breath and cliff hangs us just long enough to the next page to not lose the feeling of tension. Some thanks goes to the translators for preserving that.
I'm anxious to see how this can be done efficiently in the movie! I would personally try to run both audio tracks at the same time (the one in focus having a slightly louder voice) for scenes like this, since you can't stretch out time conveniently like you can in comics - but it would suck in subtitles. : \


Anyway, back to perspective. At this point, I'll only cover the uses for it. I'll do another post on perspective later. Got sidetracked. ><

Let's consider that cafe proposal. Flipping through my book, I realized that this volume of Deathnote also has just that (what were the chances?), o _ o ...minus the romantic element. >_>; I guess the chances were pretty high, given that I already said those were two ways talking heads worked, and talking heads is what this manga's all about...

L and Light Have Tea - Written by Tsugumi Ouba, drawn by Takeshi Obata
Here, Light talks for more than a page, just himself. This is such a ridiculous amount even L notices. Note how the artist changes it up. The last panel of his talking is what I call a blahblahblah!! panel. It's where a character exausts himself to the point that you sort of have L's reaction and it starts to feel like the character's just over-emphasizing his point or going blahblahblah! >:O The artist isn't afraid to point it out - it's part of the characterization. It's just one of the many things that work. Note the other panels used - why were these shots used in the order they were used? How about the angles?


Speaking of some things that work, panels, and talking heads, here's Wally Wood's 22 panels that work, courtesy Jihatsu, who found them for me:

Wally Wood

And we'll end with that. No homework for today! Homework when I finally get to perspective!

Today, let's look at something a little more practical. What's the production workflow for a comic? This really depends on how you work and how many people you're involving, but there's always a:


Plan - this can be a script, thumbnails or name, which can be a combination of the two
Pencils - which are actually done on the manuscript paper
Ink
Finishing - which can include speech bubbles, lettering, toning, effects and lots of other advanced techniques.
Sometimes also is pre-press, but when you're being published, the publisher takes care of this for you.


Let's go through each part. Keep in mind each one of these parts will have much entries posted on them each, and this is a very brief intro to them. Many of these steps I also use in my one shot illustrations as well, such as thumb and sometimes name. Since I don't have my how-to books with me or my own work for examples, I will use yoshitoshi Abe's lain works to illustrate. (Abe's name is spelt with a capital A and B, lowercase e, but I can't seem to make this program let me do it.) I scanned these myself off the English publication version of it, in low quality.
Now, let's get started!


The plan is written by whoever's writing the piece. Even when you're working solo, it's a good idea (by that, I mean a must) to get your idea down enough to think it over. The plan consists of a script, thumbnails and/or name.

A writer will use a script. Scripts can come in many forms. Some script writers include every detail and angle for each panel and leave nothing to the artist's discretion. Only the very best artists can really work efficiently under these kinds of circumstances, and the writer has to have enough knowledge about the art form not to make this a total nightmare. However, the writer's vision stays intact, and is efficiently conveyed to the reader. Others are looser, allowing the artist to get his hands on composition, as I talked about in the last post. As a comics writer, you have to be aware of composition, not to make it too frustrating for an artist, that or trust your artist with your vision and let him take care of it. If this is what you're going to do, you can even go as far as to write prose, and have your artist interpret freely. When you do this, it's crucial to pick the right artist, since two people reading the same thing will have very different takes on it. Then, the responsibility is in your quality of writing to get the timing and mood right so your artist can pick up on it.


Once the artist has the script, thumbnails are next. Thumbs, like in design, are small, probably not much larger than your thumb itself, and are used to determine page and panel layout. This is so the balance of each page is right as a whole and with its facing page. Keep speech bubbles in fully visible places - don't keep much important information towards the binding of the book. Does the balance of white and black feel lopsided? What about the angles of the panels? These are what you're considering at this stage, you're designing pages. Thumbs should be viewed as discardable items, so never spend too long on them. If you have the time, make many for each page and pick the best ones.

Thumbnail excerpt- yoshitoshi Abe lain illustrations - yoshitoshi Abe


For a group effort, the Japanese name is better. When I do solo pieces I also create name, since writing out a script in only words tends to limit me and slow me down. Solo artists should start with design thumbnails, but sometimes it's hard in terms of time. A well-done name suffices. Names (pronounced nameh) are larger, more detailed layouts. Here, you'll find facial expressions and written notes. The detail level is often higher as well, such as backgrounds and rough perspective lines. They can range from very rough to very detailed. When working for yourself, anything that's sufficient will do.

Name-type plan for an illustration - yoshitoshi Abe
This example is a high end thumbnail or a low end name. If you had to draw from this, what would you ask him to add? Always be sure you know what you're drawing.

Finished Illustration - Layer:pre PRVW - yoshitoshi Abe
I'm really liking the new scanner. Can you believe it just scanned just like that? :0

Note the differences. Why did he make the changes he made, other than the added figure in the middle?
Making rough drafts enables you to make these sorts of decisions to change things, and improves your final look. Your own personal design docs are mutable. Have fun with planning.

When you're looking over my name, I'm open to suggestions on how to make scenes better or clearer. Sometimes I have to rush, and scenes aren't as fleshed out to someone not in my head as they could be. Name and thumbs are discussable. Sometimes though, this sort of discussion goes quickly back to the writer if he's a panel-describer.


Next, comes pencils. Pencils are done strait on the manuscript paper and are intended for inking. The people or people pencilling are responsible for the over all technical quality of the drawing itself. Pencillers have to be strong in many of the technical items I'm going to cover here, such as perspective and anatomy. Pencillers should be the most technical of the artists, since more creative people can do thumbs and inking, effect and tone. The ones who follow after will simply follow the guidelines set in place by a skilled penciller. Unlike the more creative jobs, however, one doesn't necessarily need to be a fantastic 'artist'. Just getting the name onto the manuscript page in a skilled way is enough, and these things can be taught.

Pencils - yoshitoshi Abe
These are almost acceptable pencilling levels. Pretend you were given these to ink. What would you ask the penciller for with regards to the figures? Are there backgrounds? Not every panel will even have a background (necessarily), so this should be explicit. If you're going to photocopy in a background or phototrace, be sure to mark this somewhere.

Lain illust pencil - yoshitoshi Abe
Here is a nice image that shows the inker just what to do and combines some of the last lesson. The composition here is really professional, study it closely, what do you notice about the direction of lines? This is something I'll be getting into with more detail later. Also, the perspective is great along the curved wall.

Previous image close-up - yoshitoshi Abe
Here's the image of the figure, Lain, a bit bigger. If you were picking it up as an inker, wouldn't you be pleased? At the same time, you might not be pleased by the heavy shading which you'll probably have to end up erasing. Abe does not appear to ink, so he colours right on top of his shadings. Imagine what a good balance might look like, from an inker's perspective. You want to be told what parts should be dark and what to be light for the composition, but all that erasing... It's handy if the inker can be trusted with a more simple drawing, and makes 'beta' decisions by himself:
Tip: Depending on the style, things with heavy shading, such as the inside of her sleeve, might well be inked in 'beta', which means solid black. Instead of the penciller shading in a heavy black, why not outline the area and write 'beta'? If, as a penciller, you want to shade in so you can see the colour balance yourself, that's okay too, but be cleanly when you hand it over to the inker.

Pencil in colour - yoshitoshi Abe
For a complicated image, using coloured pencils is an option. This illustration continues on the second page with the background in green showing a building and a tear in the blue fence, to make the building clear. Generally this isn't used for comics though. Perhaps for a colour cover illustration?
To ink this, a light table would be used.
Some artists like to use photo-blue pencil. This is a kind of pencil that doesn't need to be erased when photocopied. I would like to look into this, as having a dedicated team member to erase manuscript paper is fairly injurious as well as time and resource wasting. Can someone do this for me?

High detail pencil - yoshitoshi Abe
I could say that pencils don't have to be this detailed, but I might be lying. What would lain's room be without all this detail? Why should this detail be left up to the poor inker? The inker has enough trouble creating smooth lines and deciding on lighting and other things. If you can produce this sort of work in reasonable time, then you'll be a very valuable penciller. Luckily, we're not trying to reproduce lain's complicated world. If the style is complicated, then the pencils are complicated.

The person in charge of pencilling is in a position of some responsibility. If there's an inconsistency, it's usually the penciller's fault. This is why it's important to have reference sheets. If the writer or name artists have not made one, request one, or present one yourself. This can be done on a separate sheet you can have handy as you draw, so no details change or get left out from panel to panel. This is even more important when there is more than one penciller on a job.

Object design - yoshitoshi Abe
Here's some design for the lain-famous Navi. It gets a lot of screen time, and lain eventually turns it into the detailed set shown above. If you had to draw lain using it, isn't this helpful? The writer or originator of the concept should always design the technology of a time and place. It's possible he can't draw it, so it's crucial to have good communication for objects in the world. Almost nothing is quite as important to give grounding and flavour to a story than the objects the characters use. A strong setting makes the reader believe.

lain costume design - yoshitoshi Abe
Generally costume design shows more of the character wearing each article than this example, but this is a collage made for the book. Fabrics are made clearer when wrinkles are made; have the character lift an arm. Show him from the back, and the side too, if it's complicated. Show him doing things in his outfit. Look closely; how does each costume affect the personality of the different lains? If you saw only one of these, and knew nothing of the story, who would you think lain is? (On an interesting note, one of the themes of the show is "Who is lain?") Remember, people judge at first sight, at least to a point, and this is especially true in comics. Be clear in your designs what you want to portray!

Production designs like this can also be inked. It depends on the artist. I prefer the versatility of pencils for folds and texture, but there's no reason someone can't do the same with pen. I've also seen toned and roughly coloured production sketches.


Inks!

There is a lot to say about inks, and Abe doesn't appear to have any. Inks almost always have their own book alone. For illustration, inks aren't always necessary, but for comics, it's a vital part. The responsibility of the inker is to clean the pencils and make sure things are clear. He brings the foreground forward and the background fall back. He has to know how to use a pen and ruler and fix any minor mistakes the penciller has made. It's always best when the inker is well versed with some pencilling and vice versa. It makes the job for both easier. Suffice to say that the inker has a strong word on lighting. The bright sun falls on a youth, you're seeing him from slightly below, and the sun strongly hits his shoulder. Chances are, that part of his shoulder is not going to be inked, perhaps parts of his hair as well. Shojo manga has excellent examples of omission, flip through some. Omission, like in music, often has as much to say. In the words of Kevin Smith, inkers don't just trace! Inkers have to be their own artists too.
Line widths is also a major judgement on the part of inkers, and establishes their style. This is especially true of western artists. Finally, how they approach shading also defines style. And how much is left to the tonepaperists or colourists? Again, this is its own section, so I'll move along. Examples are all around you! Note how different they all are! In western comics, the style is less varied, but once you learn how to read the lines, the differences will jump out. More on that stuff some other time.
Tip: I find it hard to flip through books without reading them, so going back to front helps a little.


Finishing, like pencils, and ink can be a whole book just in itself, even an encyclopedia, and compromises everything from the inks to when the reader sees it. In manga, tonepaper is a big deal, but this too will be covered in depth later. Tonepaper adds mood, the same way colour would. Many, when tonepapering, take colour into account. Boosting the clarity of the inks is also part of the tonepaperist's (or colourist's) job. The closer to the 'camera' the more detailed your tonepapering will have to be. --But not necessarily. There's less and less I can say as standard truth as we get along in the production line. This is where the style really comes alive, though it's no less complex than the job of the pencillist.
Whole courses are built around pre-press, which is closely linked to the reasons for tonepaper and inking in the first place. All this will be covered in detail at a later date.


And that brings me to my conclusion. Aw, this was another lecture, wasn't it? But you'd rather if I kept this one that way, don't you? :p Haha, this would be some pretty intense homework. The key is to start looking at your world a particular way. Carry around a sketchbook or a camera. When something appealing shows up, save it. Notice light and shadow, the convergence of lines in real life, and notice when something is being particularly effective in the comics you read. Feel free to share stuff you feel is being effective, that's the only homework this time other than looking over Abe's work here.

There's lots of ways to make comics. Comics are just sequential illustrations. But, that's how they have to be approached, and it's a complicated thing.

Bikeh-chan

Looks like I'm only going to update this when I'm too tired to do actual work. So, I don't promise anything in the way of spelling (despite spell check), or making sense. But I'll try, and maybe quote a lot.

Now, I know the people reading this are all at different levels. Some draw fantastically, others are great composers, some good at lighting or better at portraiture, realistic style, manga style, some can't draw at all (or so they say). Realistically, anybody can be taught enough basics to be an assistant. A lot in this genre is technical, and that's all you need. The art is all in the layout and planning. The rest is just knowing how to do it and training your hand for control, which is just practice.

Today, we'll take a look into sequential art and some things to consider. Basically, here's a way to pick up and read comics around your house as someone who does comics.

Sequential art breaks up into a couple of things. But mostly, comics are a time-based medium. A friendly resource for this is Scott McCloud (yes, I know he dissed web comics). In my opinion, timing is the most crucial part of comiking. It's often closely tied to clarity of individual frames (and over all pages) as well, which will be thoroughly delved into at a later date, as it's too big in scope for this entry. Both of these involves the manipulation of the reader (which I will occasionally call the user, because that's what I'm used to saying every day...). The reader must stop when you want him to, and never when you don't particularly mean it. I'm going to use manga to illustrate this, since it's much easier to screw up manga-style panelling, and there are plentiful examples, even among good artists.

Actions scenes are the hardest to portray. Here are some examples. Depending on what you're trying to express, your action is going to take on different forms, so it's a little unfair to use different stories from different artists, but sometimes, what you're trying to express is the difficulty itself.

In this example (read right to left), the solo mangaka makes an attempt at explaining the situation by a speech bubble, but that causes conventions and cheesiness, so it should be generally avoided. He doesn't do this a lot though, and he may have just wanted to slip in the mobile suit's name, but if this is happening frequently, then there is a problem or you're writing for 7 year old Japanese boys.


Ecole du Ciel - Haruhiko Mikimoto


Once you start firing lasers and stuff (or falling off bicycles, for a more mundane example), readers tend to read through words and panels very fast to keep up with the speed he feels the action is happening at, regardless of what you put in his way. Wordless action scenes work best, since the words don't drag down the flow of the action's speed. It's easier to control him with panel size and shape than with getting the right word-count - or a dreadful combination of the two.

There are many ways to drag the reader's eye to a slower pace. Words is one, and can be used skilfully with the right illustration. High detail is another. Low contrast. Large panels. Combinations of these can leave me looking at a page or panel ten, even twenty seconds. It can feel like days in story-time. It's always better to show 'days', than tell 'days' (as an example). The reader will have a more lasting and emotional impression. Words appeal to logic and information. Pictures appeal more to emotion. Comics is the skilful combination of the two performing what they do best without conflict.

Something else - the manga panelling style is particularly hard to grasp because it works contextually, like the Japanese language does. An establishing shot would normally set up the scene - you'd get a nice visual of each of the fighters, and it's easier to follow, even if the author doesn't get good shots from then on. The trick is to neither be too small-boy's comic obvious or too 'artistic' with establishing scenes. Trying to explain the action with a speech bubble is a lost cause. A reader will not backtrack just to look at what he now understands, and you've wasted a lot of work.

What would you do with your character who's about to be ambushed in the depths of space?
The optimal would be to convey the sense of confusion to the reader, maybe even scare him, but ground him with something. There must always be something familiar to the reader. Writers might be familiar with this convention, such as the character Alice from Alice in Wonderland. She grounds us to the story, and holds the thing together, just by being comparatively normal. What about familiarizing the reader with the robot - or parts of it - then showing just those parts in the heat of battle? You'll then know who's being hit just by the design. Maybe the machine has particular knuckle joints - you can just show a powerful punch and you know it's the enemy's getting it, even if it's a terrible composition. All you had to do is show it handling a rifle or a knife earlier in the scene.

The next is up to you (read left to right). Does it make sense to you? Why or why not?


BLAME! (fr) BLAM! (eng/jp) - Tsutomu Nihei


How long did it take you to read it? How long did it take you to read the other fight example? What are your thoughts on how long the action actually is and how long you read it for? Too-short can also be a problem, but it depends on the reader, too. See anything else interesting in either?

I guess that makes your homework pretty simple, just reply and discuss.
Sorry to start off on a lecture note! I'll change up with some art for next time.