Thanksgiving Leftovers

Greetings folks, 

It's been a few since last we discussed the progress of the book, and I'm going to chock that up to holiday feasting and festivities. It's also largely thanks to the fact that I've been busy setting up my studio. My wife and I moved into our new home back in July and I've been embarrassingly delayed in setting up my studio/office due to a number of set backs (Hurricane Matthew, house repairs and visiting relations). 

All has been moving steadily forward with A Land Remembered: The Graphic Novel, and my aim is the finish these thumbnails before the beginning of the new year, if not sooner. I also want to provide you all with a more detailed look at the MacIvey Clan's character designs. Once 2017 kicks off, we too should be well onto the journey of pencilling out the finalized artwork for the book and laying the groundwork for a fantastic graphical journey across pioneer Florida. 

I'll be taking you all on a tour of my newly minted studios shortly, giving you a detailed look into the artist's layer. I'm just putting the finishing touches on the wall and stocking the bookshelf with my massive collection of books. I hope all of you had a very warm Thanksgiving, enjoying time with your family and friends. There are some exciting times to come, so stay tuned. 

Talk soon,

Andre

Thumbnails!

It's been a crazy week, but what we're going to focus on is the insanity of thumbnail work. 

So to clarify what a "thumbnail" is. It's essentially the rough draft/layout of what will eventually become a completed comic book page. The goal is to create what the page will look like panel to panel, but it doesn't require anything intricate or detailed. It can even be sloppy and simplistic, but as long as it provides me with the blueprints of what's to come, it serves it's purpose. 

The name "thumbnail" comes from the size of the illustration. Most comic artists draw these loose rough drafts very small, sometimes thumbnail small, thus the name. 

What makes this such a tedious process is that it requires the whole script to be converted into this format before any of the fun stuff can happen. At first, I contemplated skipping this phase and going straight to the actual comic pages, but the problem with that is that you can easily lose sight of the over-all picture and end up with too many pages or not enough pages. Either way, the book suffers. 

Think of it like building a piece of wood furniture. If you don't follow the directions or at the least use a measuring tape, you can end up with a lopsided piece of furniture. 

Below is a run down of the process, from the overall Thumbnail page (which consists of layout boxes for four pages)...

...to page 2 (zoomed in from the larger image)...

...to what the finished artwork looks like based off the thumbnail direction. 

Sadly, I'm still in the early days of completing the thumbnails. It should take me the better half of November to complete, but by December we should be in full swing on working on the finished pencils. 

In other news, I will be appearing at the November 13th Daytona Beach Comic Convention. You can check out my other works, pick up a copy of one of my graphic novels and meet yours truly!  I'd love a chance to hear your thoughts about this blog so far and what you think about the adaptation of A Land Remembered. 

In the meantime, check of a few other selected samples from my ever growing thumbnail pages for the project!