Post by mikebowden on Mar 15, 2009 7:27:15 GMT -5
Hey Guys, this is from a post by Joe on joemadureira.com which is really great, he gives some good advice about page layouts. I just found it saved on my pc and thought I would share:
JOeM@D!
Elite Member
Posts: 312
Registered: Sep 2000
posted 09-26-2000 05:39 AM Staff Use Only:
As for your question, there's no real trick to it. I know alot of guys that design their pages in the shape of a letter or number for perfect balance, stuff like that. Occasionally, I'll get artsy fartsy, but mostly I just shoot from the hip.
For a cover, I just figure out how many characters I'm working with, and how I can make them as BIG as possible. I will almost always go for a montage style cover when I have multiple characters, because then at least 1 or 2 of them will be HUGE and in your face. There's nothing I hate more than covers with 12 tiny little figures on it.
The most important aspect of designing a layout with multiple characters in it, is the placement and spacing of their heads. No matter what you end up doing with the bodies, the heads are most important, as the reader will instinctively look at the characters faces first. If the heads are all over the place, your eye will start wandering. If you look at the Turtles drawing, you'll see the heads are basically an arching line.
Actually, my two favorite compositions of all time ( My stuff ) are the Turtles pin-up and the cover to BC #1. If you look carefully at the Turtles shot, you will notice there are all kinds of things pulling your eyes around it. The chain is zooming in left from off camera, bringing you to Michaelangelo, his sash is blowing right, where you catch Raphael's face, which is arching upward, along with his weapon, which points right to Donatello's face. Dons staff, is flying left off camera, which brings our eye to Leo. There is ALOT going on here, and normally, I never put this much thought into it. You don't have to get so complex with it, just space the heads in a pleasing way. Your eyes are trained on basic shapes, so arranging them in a diamond, circle, triangle, or even lines, straight, curved, whatever.
Always remember your eye will move left to right instinctively, because this is how we read. Anything moving towards the right will get an extra little boost of speed and motion as your eye moves along with it. Anything moving left across the page is going 'past the camera' so to speak, this usually slows down the figure. It works great if you are meant to see one thing first, for just a sec, and then focus on something else. For instance, Let's say I were doing a scene of a monster creeping up behind Gully. Having Gully facing us to the far left, with the monster creeping up from the right, would force us to notice Gully first, register her without seeing the monster yet, and THEN we would notice it coming up behind her as our eye moved to the right.
If we reversed it, with Gully on the right, and the monster on the left, we would see the monster first, which would give it away. This COULD work, if we have the monster in the foreground left, with gully in the background, her back to us. Now, we are follwing the monster, creeping along with it, and we eventually come to Gully, which we now sense is in big trouble. As long as you remember that you are going to see everything on the left side first, you'll be able to do some really cool timing and planning.
Although, as I just mentioned, it can be really cool to have things move left for effect, you will generally want everything moving to the right, since it's more comfortable to the eye, and creates more motion.
For pages, I usually just figure out how many panels it will take to best illustrate the scene. Save large panels for important things, use small panels for unimportant information to save room. For instance, it would be kind of goofy to have a HUGE half page panel of Gambit's head, and then a tiny shot of the X-men breaking into a complex and battling the Marauders. I like establishing shots of characters to be as large as possible.
Lets say we are working on a page where Gully finds a strange box, thinks twice about opening it, and then throws caution to the wind, opening it up, only to have a large hand come out of it and grab her by the throat. ( Silly, I know, but it works..)
Right away, I know that I want that last panel of her being grabbed to be enormous. None of the other stuff is very important, so small panels would work. One of her finding the box, maybe a hand shot reaching towards it, then a headshot, because we want to see the look of worry on her face. If you saved room, the last shot should be massive.
Actually, the last example also presents another problem. When something is meant to surprise you, it should always be the first panel on the page. In the example above, turning to that page, we would see the hand grabbing her, even before we read the panels before it. VERY anti-climactic. It basically ruins the whole setup. If I were working with a writer, I would find out if I could move the last panel over to the next page. The scene would now end with Gully opening the box. Now, we turn the page, and BAM! Surprise!
Beyond that, I just project the mental image onto the page and start to rough it out. There's nothing else to it. Drawing lines all over the page is just an extra step, if it helps, great, but I think that as long as you are mindful of left to right movement, panel size, setups and reveals, and have a good grasp of storytelling, you're good to go.
One last thing I should mention is establishing shots. I've been ribbed many many times for not doing many backgrounds. Personally, I like to design my shots around the characters, not the environment ( Unless the environment is important to the scene ). Still, you should establish where the characters are right away. After that, unless they change locations, backgrounds are not quite as important ( Not to me anyhow ).
I will ALWAYS focus my shots on the characters, giving them as much room as they need, and making them look as cool as possible. If there's room for a background after all that, cool, if not, too bad. The characters are what people buy the book for. If you want backgrounds, go buy Architectural Digest. I'm sure most purists would scoff at this, but hey, that's the way I do it. I HAVE been working in more backgrounds lately, mostly because I'm having fun doing it, but also because I think it's important to start establishing the BC world. Another REALLY long answer to a simple question.
Good god, we are going to have to start an artist's corner with all this stuff in it, I don't want to have to repeat this stuff...LOL.
------------------
JOeM@D!
JOeM@D!
Elite Member
Posts: 312
Registered: Sep 2000
posted 09-26-2000 05:39 AM Staff Use Only:
As for your question, there's no real trick to it. I know alot of guys that design their pages in the shape of a letter or number for perfect balance, stuff like that. Occasionally, I'll get artsy fartsy, but mostly I just shoot from the hip.
For a cover, I just figure out how many characters I'm working with, and how I can make them as BIG as possible. I will almost always go for a montage style cover when I have multiple characters, because then at least 1 or 2 of them will be HUGE and in your face. There's nothing I hate more than covers with 12 tiny little figures on it.
The most important aspect of designing a layout with multiple characters in it, is the placement and spacing of their heads. No matter what you end up doing with the bodies, the heads are most important, as the reader will instinctively look at the characters faces first. If the heads are all over the place, your eye will start wandering. If you look at the Turtles drawing, you'll see the heads are basically an arching line.
Actually, my two favorite compositions of all time ( My stuff ) are the Turtles pin-up and the cover to BC #1. If you look carefully at the Turtles shot, you will notice there are all kinds of things pulling your eyes around it. The chain is zooming in left from off camera, bringing you to Michaelangelo, his sash is blowing right, where you catch Raphael's face, which is arching upward, along with his weapon, which points right to Donatello's face. Dons staff, is flying left off camera, which brings our eye to Leo. There is ALOT going on here, and normally, I never put this much thought into it. You don't have to get so complex with it, just space the heads in a pleasing way. Your eyes are trained on basic shapes, so arranging them in a diamond, circle, triangle, or even lines, straight, curved, whatever.
Always remember your eye will move left to right instinctively, because this is how we read. Anything moving towards the right will get an extra little boost of speed and motion as your eye moves along with it. Anything moving left across the page is going 'past the camera' so to speak, this usually slows down the figure. It works great if you are meant to see one thing first, for just a sec, and then focus on something else. For instance, Let's say I were doing a scene of a monster creeping up behind Gully. Having Gully facing us to the far left, with the monster creeping up from the right, would force us to notice Gully first, register her without seeing the monster yet, and THEN we would notice it coming up behind her as our eye moved to the right.
If we reversed it, with Gully on the right, and the monster on the left, we would see the monster first, which would give it away. This COULD work, if we have the monster in the foreground left, with gully in the background, her back to us. Now, we are follwing the monster, creeping along with it, and we eventually come to Gully, which we now sense is in big trouble. As long as you remember that you are going to see everything on the left side first, you'll be able to do some really cool timing and planning.
Although, as I just mentioned, it can be really cool to have things move left for effect, you will generally want everything moving to the right, since it's more comfortable to the eye, and creates more motion.
For pages, I usually just figure out how many panels it will take to best illustrate the scene. Save large panels for important things, use small panels for unimportant information to save room. For instance, it would be kind of goofy to have a HUGE half page panel of Gambit's head, and then a tiny shot of the X-men breaking into a complex and battling the Marauders. I like establishing shots of characters to be as large as possible.
Lets say we are working on a page where Gully finds a strange box, thinks twice about opening it, and then throws caution to the wind, opening it up, only to have a large hand come out of it and grab her by the throat. ( Silly, I know, but it works..)
Right away, I know that I want that last panel of her being grabbed to be enormous. None of the other stuff is very important, so small panels would work. One of her finding the box, maybe a hand shot reaching towards it, then a headshot, because we want to see the look of worry on her face. If you saved room, the last shot should be massive.
Actually, the last example also presents another problem. When something is meant to surprise you, it should always be the first panel on the page. In the example above, turning to that page, we would see the hand grabbing her, even before we read the panels before it. VERY anti-climactic. It basically ruins the whole setup. If I were working with a writer, I would find out if I could move the last panel over to the next page. The scene would now end with Gully opening the box. Now, we turn the page, and BAM! Surprise!
Beyond that, I just project the mental image onto the page and start to rough it out. There's nothing else to it. Drawing lines all over the page is just an extra step, if it helps, great, but I think that as long as you are mindful of left to right movement, panel size, setups and reveals, and have a good grasp of storytelling, you're good to go.
One last thing I should mention is establishing shots. I've been ribbed many many times for not doing many backgrounds. Personally, I like to design my shots around the characters, not the environment ( Unless the environment is important to the scene ). Still, you should establish where the characters are right away. After that, unless they change locations, backgrounds are not quite as important ( Not to me anyhow ).
I will ALWAYS focus my shots on the characters, giving them as much room as they need, and making them look as cool as possible. If there's room for a background after all that, cool, if not, too bad. The characters are what people buy the book for. If you want backgrounds, go buy Architectural Digest. I'm sure most purists would scoff at this, but hey, that's the way I do it. I HAVE been working in more backgrounds lately, mostly because I'm having fun doing it, but also because I think it's important to start establishing the BC world. Another REALLY long answer to a simple question.
Good god, we are going to have to start an artist's corner with all this stuff in it, I don't want to have to repeat this stuff...LOL.
------------------
JOeM@D!
