One project is over but it all keeps going.
This is one I have been looking forward to and dreading at the same time. I call it the "what do you want to do when you grow up" project, as it is basically that. Where do you see your art fitting in, commercially speaking.
I was torn between doing a comic and doing a more design thing. Saved in my drawing ideas document is "Mascot line for promotion of Japanese-Mexican fusion restaurant", which I think I'll do for the next (and final) Raster Illustration project. That requires a design thing, right? Yeah.
So we go back to the comic. And the more I think about it, the more I realize I don't really want to do a comic. I suppose I want to do a literal graphic novel; a novel that is written with pictures in it, some with full-page drawings, other just spot illustrations. 'cause let's face it - I operate in two modes. I either want to do drawings that really don't have much to do with the scene (basically, promotional artwork):
or I want to draw people making faces.
I think part of it is the fact that I grew up and read manga, and the way things are dealt with in those tends to be different from other things. I dunno, just a thought.
Why should I be fighting my strengths? I mean, yes, I need to work on drawing backgrounds, stuff like that, but I should really be embracing what I can do here. Part of the problem seems to be my professor's weird see-saw of letting me draw how I naturally go and wanting me to do realistic stuff. Bleghrf.
The other half of the equation is the writing part. I love writing, and can knock it out fairly quickly compared to drawing. But I really like putting drawings to my writings. I just don't like putting drawings to all my writings. I feel that there are some things better imagined and then other things that are just begging to be drawn.
I'm sure if I tried to explain this logic to my professor, she would think I'm wussing out on drawing hard things, or something. I imagine I'd get the "we as illustrators are trying to draw the world" chat. But as a drawerer and a writer, I don't feel that way. You know when people say the books were ruined by the movie because what the movie shows isn't what they saw? That's how I feel a lot with my own stuff.
Locations are set in my head. Everything has a certain look, a certain feel. I know, for instance, what Russell's antique shop looks like, where it's located, how it smells: It's a darker place with the only lights coming from the window, and when yellow sunlight enters, dust is visible in its beams. It’s longer than it is wide, with the cash register in the back but of perfect view of the front door. Pieces are old and stacked on glass display shelves, the rows crammed and some difficult to navigate. One of the windows has a display area, where more marketable commodities sit. The other is a flat, normal window, where a little Tati would press her face and hands to the glass and marvel at the world outside.
The city its in has an old time kind of feel, a bit like Elgin and Chicago mashed into one (see, that only works if you come from where I come from). Russell's shop is located on a corner, one of the sides on a downhill slope. There’s a side entrance cut into that slope where Russell takes his smoke breaks, and it leads into a small, non-air conditioned room that is always musty and cramped. Go up a couple steps and you go through a door that leads back into the shop. A half step back is a staircase leading to the apartment upstairs, where he and Tati live.
I know I’ll never be able to render this scene, a scene I have so perfectly set in my head, as an image. I could compile photographs and things together to try and help you see what I see, but it’s not going to be the same. And I know if I draw it, I’ll say “this is what it is, but it’s not exactly what I want it to be”. The other chunk of that being I’ll rob you of what you see. Part of my description relies upon towns and cities I know that have a certain look and feel, where the buildings and roads are a certain way. But it’s not the same for everyone.
The fun part about not being tethered to being just a novel or just a comic is that I can play with the format. Maybe I want to do a couple pages of a comic. Maybe I really just want to write a chapter with no images. Mix it up and there can be something you could publish as a serial – like how, back in the old days, books were published chapter by chapter. Get two for the price of one. Things like that.
I suppose I should explain this viewpoint to my professor tomorrow when we’re going over ideas. I’ve had a hard time seeing it, but writing it out has assisted greatly.
