Thumbnailing Nwain

Despite 15 weeks of my summer being devoted to school, I have made some progress on Nwain.

I cut an unnecessary complication from the plot--a bout with monsters at the end that was in no way connected to the main storyline.  But!  We can't have a fantasy adventure without monsters, so never fear, there will still be a slathering demonic critter of some sort.  I simply can't sit by and let a monster go undesigned.  It'll just be more integrated with the story this way.

Now with the plot more settled in my head, I'm skipping on writing a full script for now.  I can envision the scenes and roughly what needs to happen in each.  I will write out a plan for what needs to happen on each page, so I can keep the number of pages at 22.  (I feel a deep need to be strict about that arbitrary number, even though this is a personal project and in all likelihood will never be picked up by a big comics publisher.  I don't have to play by their rules, but eh.  I'll take the challenge--ultimately, it means fewer pages to draw, which means I might actually finish this thing.)

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  So, I'm moving on straight to roughing out page layouts.  That helps me determine the rhythm of the panels, and that will help me write the dialogue.  I'm finding that, unlike animation, where dialogue has to be written and recorded before the drawing gets going, comics don't give a nit about lipsyncing.  I can draw and write nearly simultaneously, with pictures informing what I can do with the words, and vice versa.  It's pretty cool, and I'm having a blast doing it.


The other day, I used my mom's iPad to show Nwain pictures to people at Bonsai (a sushi place I've gone to since kidhood).  It seemed to hit a chord with some people, and one cool lady picked up on the Elfquest influences straight away.  I love Elfquest, so that made me really happy.  I suppose other strong influences would include Samurai Jack by Genndy Tartakovski and the Sandman by Neil Gaiman.

At anyrate.  I want to have the rough layouts done before school.  Hopefully I can sneak the first draft under a few noses and get some critique before moving on to the penciling stage.

That's it for this round!  Hopefully my next blogger post will be sooner than three months from now.