Sketchy Business.

Going from the thumbnail to the sketch is, for me, the hardest part of the process. In this step I have to resolve my issues with perspective, finalize all of the designs for everything that appears in the panel, and settle on the final composition for the scene. Also, this is the part where I need to be able to draw. Since this is such a big step in the process I may take several posts to cover it all. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

There are a few ways to go about doing this. One of them, which works only seldom, is to just go ahead and use your thumbnail sketch. Every other blue moon I spend enough time on a particular thumbnail study with my trusty Bic that I grow attached to it. This can be bad.

Oscar Wilde once said, "Sometimes you have to kill your little darlings." I think that often holds true with sketches, at any stage of the process. You can easily become attached to a sketch that has a good characteristic about it but is not compositionally sound or is not right for the scene. At these times, as much as you love your pretty little thumbnail, you have to take it out behind the shed with a shotgun. It's a tough choice, but that's what artists do. Artists make choices.

Every now and then you don't have to do this thing, and when one of those times comes around it is a kind day. I take this stellar pen study and I scan it onto my computer at home. Then I import it into Photoshop and I blow it up to the size that the panel will be. After this step I print it out and just use it in place of a sketch. All of my sketches wind up on computer paper one way or another. I then get to use my three-hole-punch (for future reference abbreviated 3HP) to collect them in a binder, the nefarious purpose of which we have already spoken.

Before I use my trusty 3HP though, I usually tape my sketches to the back of a sheet of bristol board, on which I have already drawn out my panel borders, and I place them on a light-box to be inked. After all that is what they are there for. But I digress.

In most cases I don't have that perfect thumbnail to work from. In truth you can only use thumbnails in panels where the subject matter may allow. You could not, for instance, use a thumbnail for an establishing shot. The reason for this is elementary. An establishing shot has far too much detail to be captured properly by a thumbnail. Thumbnails work well for figures or actions that are drawn in close, emphasizing character and motion over texture and detail. I also find myself using them for scenes of chaos, aka explosions, crashes, etc... because what you want for those images, more than anything, is dynamism. In order to get this effect you have to surrender some control, which is exactly what thumbnails take away.

In most cases, however, these specialized circumstances do not occur and it's time to bust out the pencils. I really didn't mean to run on this long about using thumbnails in stead of pencil sketches but there you have it. Welcome to the land where the tangent is king. Next time. I promise we'll get there next time.