Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Illustrator's Workshop: Time Windows


Another fairly straightforward composition this week to go along with the discussion of setting up the time function of starting a story.

The most noticeable part of the drawing, the recursive gag in the middle, took the least amount of thought and time to bring off, and you barely see it being done in the above time lapse.  It was basically a matter of copy+paste and scaling all the way back into the background.  (The idea isn't mine, it was used before in Spaceballs to humorous effect, and I'm sure elsewhere before and since.)

I played around with different techniques between the two images of past and future; on the right I used what's become my usual outline-then-color-in method, and on the left I used some blocks of color for the building and street, and filled outlines for the windows.  I'd like to take more time to practice with the latter, as I believe the results have the potential to be more satisfying and less cartoony than the everything-is-outlined look.

It might sound weird, I'm pleased with how easily this drawing came together, and I still think it looks pretty good.  I'm learning to think of drawings as "cheap" or "pricey" depending on how much time they take to produce, compared to how good it winds up looking in the end.  One thing I'm learning from trying to be consistently creatively productive is that time is always a limited asset, and being able to quickly and easily draw a Dennis figure without much sweat, thanks to practiced familiarity, is one thing I'm definitely learning to appreciate.

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