Posts Tagged ‘meeting’
2 items.
Nov10
Another Star Wars comic? Why not? It’s in the news right now and it’s good to kind of dust off some old nerd jokes before we’re deluged with Star Wars coverage next May. I thought the idea of a Star Wars fan club sounded funny and ran with it. Expect a continuation of today’s strip on Friday.
I’m kind of trying something new with how I’m rendering the background and the environment the characters reside in When Theater Hopper started, it was pretty much just a couple of characters in front of a colored background. Eventually, I moved up to gradients. Then evolved toward putting two gradients together to form the illusion of two walls meeting at a corner. Sometimes I would toss in a window to complete the effect.
But I’ve always felt that that background should be more realistic. Or, at least as realistic as the characters in the strip to create a wholly realized situation. So I’m experimenting a little bit.
I took digital pictures of my kitchen and family room last night and used them as a point of reference when drawing Tom and Cami. Later, I went into Adobe Illustrator and used the pen tool to create the shelves, cabinets and walls in the background. It didn’t really turn out the way I wanted to. Everything looks slightly skewed. Not as tidy as I hoped. I think it was a mistake to outline everything in black. The colors should look more natural, like its part of the bigger background piece. I ended up blurring it to try and create depth, then scaled back the colors because it was competing too much with the foreground.
Obviously all of this is a learning process, but I need to find a way to create more realistic backgrounds more efficiently. I know some of you are saying “Why don’t you try drawing them by hand, Tom.” And in the past, I have. But it’s often too time consuming and not as clean as I would like it to be.
I know some people have complimented me for the use of photos in the backgrounds, but that’s always felt like a cheat to me and lazy. Plus, it becomes inconsistent with other comics in the archive. Sometimes within the same comic!
I know other artists sometimes use 3D rendering programs to help them grasp the clean lines and perspectives of walls, buildings, windows
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My apologies for the lateness of this week’s comic. I struggled with this one. I think I probably bit off more than I could chew. I guess 8-panel comics do that to me.
But I really wanted to include that line about walkie-talkies and shotguns. As you may or may not remember, Spielberg digitally removed the shotguns federal agents were carrying and replaced them with walkie-talkies for the film’s 20th anniversary re-release in 2002. It caused a bit of an uproar.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to have looked at the trailers for Super 8 and thought to themselves “It looks like E.T. with lens flares.” It’s kind of hard not to when you know that Spielberg was an executive producer and they slapped that old Amblin Entertainment title card in front of the previews.
Additionally, harping on Abrams for utilizing his favorite visual device may even be a little cheap. But at least there was SOME context for the lens flares in Abrams’ reboot of the Star Trek franchise. He said he wanted the film to look like the future.” What’s the deal with adding lens flares to a movie that’s supposed to take place in 1979?
I didn’t get a chance to see Super 8 this weekend and was left kicking myself because I’ve done a really good job of keeping myself spoiler-free. If Abrams is known for his love of lens flares, he’s equally well known for creating an air of mystery around his films. Although, once the mystery is revealed, there is rarely a reason to stick around or care about that movie ever again (Cloverfield, I’m looking at you.)
I do kind of wonder if this retro-vibe Abrams is exploring with Super 8 isn’t a bit of a wank, though. This is not just a period piece we’re talking about. He’s purposefully aping a specific style. Is Abrams trying to push the nostalgia button to earn points with audiences? Is Super 8 an original composition or is it a remix? The way Hollywood looks these days, it’s hard to know what’s authentic anymore. Every movie is either a remake, a sequel or a reference to something else.
But I still want to entertain the mystery. I’m kind of enjoying the chase. That’s why I’m not exactly enthusiastic to ask you guys to submit your thoughts about Super 8 if you happened to see it this weekend. I want to go in “pure.”
After all, if Super 8 is an 80’s throwback, it seems appropriate to be caught off-sides by it like audiences back then did. Back before there was the internet or a 1,000 spoilers creeping around every corner.
Am I alone in this? Did anyone else experience the same sense of anticipation with Super 8? Is it justified or am I being manipulated? And if I’m being manipulated, isn’t that kind of the point?
I guess I’m feeling kind of philosophical today. If you’d like to add your thoughts in the comments section, jump in.
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