Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

Here is one of the pre-production illustrations I did for the film “Legacy.”

Click to make big

Part 3 of my process for the Reggietown comic book.

http://www.thickets.net/toren/index.php?s=reggietown for previous entries.

The notes from the writers on my thumbnails for page 10 were:

Page 10 – Panels 5 – 6, I like the scope of the wide establisher, but we should seat Reggie at the bar, then it would be a great two-shot over Reggie’s back onto the bartender for Panel 6.

and

keep both Reggie and the bartender in the frame for Panel 6. To me, the easiest way to do that, is seat Reggie at the bar, because you can get into a little more detail instead of having to keep it super-wide. You don’t need to go wide in back-to-back frames, the first establisher should be enough..

and so:

Rather than do a wide establishing shot of the interior bar, I posited the idea of an EXTERIOR shot to establish the bar which is probably a good thing (I like to keep pages uncluttered wherever possible). Now the page is only a 6 panel page rather than a 7 panel page. In panel 6 of the new page there’s lots of room to show the empty bar and for word balloons for both characters.

Part 2 of my process for the Reggietown comic book.

http://www.thickets.net/toren/index.php?s=reggietown for previous entries.

Panels 1-4 are pretty much as described in the script.

Panel 5 reads “wide [establishing shot] of Reggie in the empty bar/ Interior seedy bar: Reggie sits in an empty bar, high as a kite.”

First off, showing a wide shot establishing a bar that also shows somone high as a kite is pretty hard to do. I’d have to do kind of a closeup of Reggie in the foreground and figure out how to draw someone so it’s obvious he’s under the influence of drugs. So I ignored that. Partly because I’m lazy, partly because I also thought I could try to sell that with the way he’s sitting. Also, I don’t think it’s particularly important for the scene to show that he’s high. Him drinking beers is going to illustrate that he’s now or soon to be f’d up.

You’ll also notice immediately that panel 5 is not hand drawn. In fact, the bar is stolen from a jpeg off the internet. This is a quick and easy way to put thumbnails together. In the final, I’m probably going to go down to the Fairview Pub on Broadway and snap some reference photos, but for now, this photo will suffice. On the computer I scribbled the figures in red.

Panel 6 calls for a two-shot with the bartender and Reggie talking. Panel 7 has Reggie drinking. Again I ignored this and put the bartender in one shot saying his line, and Reggie in another panel saying his line WHILE he’s drinking.

Time for an art-related blog post, finally….

Reggietown is a comic story I’m working on with the Critical Hit Comics guys (Outnumbered being their previous venture) that will be published in an anthology by New Reliable Press (Ed Brisson).

I’m going to show you my process on page 10. Not because I think page 10 is the best page, but of the ones I’ve worked on so far, it is perhaps the most insightful about the process.

Here’s the script:

The way I got the script initially is the way these guys write – screenplay style. Nothing was broken down into panels, it was just the story told as a script for a film.

Then they went through the script and broke it down. There’s a small challenge here for me as the artist to reconcile the script as is and the breakdown notations, as they’re not always exactly the same.

For example, in Panel 7, the script says “Reggie throws back a couple of beers in quick succession.” Now this (drinking multiple drinks quickly) obviously is something that would be illustrated in more than one panel. The breakdown note is “Close on Reggie as he throws back a drink.” In some cases I choose which line to illustrate – the breakdown info or the original script. That’s the flip side to working with these guys is that I have a lot of latitude. Quite often I’ll completely ignore instructions and give them what I think works best. And we’ll see how that works out in the next blog entry.

Cloudscape Comics Collective (of which I am part) is pleased to announce that Historyonics (the issue with the four page origin story of Rhinosferatu) was the winner of the Outstanding Design Award at the Stumptown 2009 Trophy Awards (in Portland Oregon0!

No joke!

Despite what the trophy looks like.

Here’s Rhinosferatu as he will appear in the WWFJ supplement for Mutants & Masterminds, as published by Atomic Overmind Press as part of the Superlink dealio!

Now the thing about Dupligator is that he’s a nightmare PC by the very nature of his powers. I came to realize that and removed him as a sample PC to become a hero-turned-villain in the WWFJ mythos, and with that comes the inevitable costume change.

I did these sketches while manning the Second Level Wizards booth at the Hayao Miyazaki Film Fest. I only had two coloured pens with me at the time, orange and blue.

Of the ones below, I like B best. Since he is from the future, I figure I can dress him up in anything and say it’s the style of his time. B seems futuristic but not over-the-top supervillain. Click image to enlarge.

Finally!

Pencilled, inked and colored 98% by hand.

Here’s a tip I learned through the process of inking this half of the cover of Atomic Press’ “World Wildlife Federation of Justice” supplement for Mutants & Masterminds roleplaying game: if you’re using #1003 comic book paper and you feel like flipping the paper over so that the little blue lines won’t subconsciously affect the artwork as you draw on the page – DON’T. The back of the paper has a different ‘tooth’ than the front and if you try to use a nib to ink over the pencils that you have worked long and hard on, the ink will bleed into the fibers of the page so you don’t get clean lines. As a result I had to use a brush almost exclusively on this page which was a limitation I didn’t need.

Anyway, this is more or less the final linework. I’ll be spending some of the weekend colouring and some of the weekend trying to put together a DVD for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party next week at the Rio Theater!!

Click on the image to make it bigger.

This is not the final design of Salamancer, but the colour choices are real. For those not in the know, Salamancer is an evil spellcasting character.