Wednesday, December 05, 2007

AWOL'd REDRAWN!

A month ago, I finished inking issue 2 of the AWOL'd series. The day after, I had a Skype chat with comic icon Larry Hama about my work on issue 1. To sum things up, he listed all the faults in my technique in storytelling and art and left me devastated. Then I looked at the freshly-inked work from the day before and I felt sick of it. Hama was right. So the next day after our chat, I took all of his advice and applied it while redrawing issue 2.
Now that I've finished redrawing issue 2, I'm going back to redrawing issue 1, and by then ... the third chapter should kick ass.

The majority of chapter 2 takes place in a train station where Karli, Norton, and Leeves talk about their game plan after escaping their covert-ops unit. Lots of talking for 15+ pages, and I had a habit of drawing too many close-up shots and less shots of the characters 'acting'. The second draft fixes that.

Here are sample pages displaying the before(left) and after(right).

page 5


page 14 - Notice the first two panels in the first draft of page 14 is similar to the last panel in page 5 (first draft). Some pazazz is added to the second draft.


page 15 - When I add the ziptone, it'll help show Karli, Norton, and Leeves being followed by an agent then split up.


Bye!

-J

5 comments:

Tyrone said...

Hey Loo ...

These new pages do show a better sign of story telling ...
Especially at the first panel on page 5 ... you're establishing where they are ... and in all the pages you get the sense that they are in a crowded environment ... I just hope that when you lay down the word bubbles you don't cover up much of the artwork ...it would be a shame ... that has happen to me ... I just make sure that I don't go overboard in some panels ...

Page 14 works way better from panel 3 to 5 ... you notice the spy but he's not too obvious ... like in the first draft ... this storytelling gives it a different feel that's for sure ... like ..who is this guy!!

And page 15 just looks overall more interesting than the previous page you did ... I like the busy crowd ... it's great! And the last panel ... that the spy is still on their tail ... it keeps the reader on the edge of its seat ...

Good stuff man ...and love the mustache ...

-Ty

ADC said...

I'd like to see the new pages with black gutters, like the old ones.

the crowd scenes have definitely benefited from the redraw, it feels more claustrophobic.

and just adding more backgrounds, and pulling the "camera" out really does wonders.

I can totally learn from this!

Jason Loo said...

Thanks. I liked the black gutters too, but Larry wasn't too keen on them. I think they only work well when the artwork is in colour. Or else black areas in the artwork will get lost in the black edges of the gutters.

AlanaMcCarthy said...

Wow, what a difference. It looks a lot more movie-like in terms of the camera distances and framing. Good job. It takes a lot of strength to take negative criticism and do something good with it.

Evan said...

I love the first panel on the first page. Fantastic stuff. It's looking really cinematic now.

I'm glad you didn't curl into your bed and die, like I would have done. I can't wait to see the rest of this.