One thing I've never mentioned before: Chew and I work on a prefabricated panel layout. I normally draw the panel boxes on a page beforehand and then Chew and I take turns placing our illustrations into the boxes. The reason for this is pretty simple. It cuts down on time. You know the size of the box, it helps you with the composition, and you know exactly how much detail and/or visual information you can cram into your panel. When Chew and I worked on Flex Fantastic (see earlier posts - issue 2 coming soon...sorry, shameless plug) I made the mistake of using a six panel layout per page. All of Chew's panels ended up on the left side of the page and all of mine ended up on the right. So this time, we are working with odd and even numbered panels per page at varying lengths to create a better flow.
Every panel poses a problem and the fun is figuring out a solution. Our heroes are in front of a door. I've got a smaller panel to work with so it wouldn't make sense to show what's behind it -- because in my mind, there's something big or it should at least feel big. So again, here's the problem of keeping momentum and creating tension. If you show what's behind the door right away, there's no tension. If I don't move the panel along, there's no momentum. The solution: A gag and a call to action! Plus a crosshatch pattern I talked about earlier! I'm starting to see a pattern forming here...either I'm getting the hang of this or I am incredibly...
...lazy.
I really enjoyed drawing Flik, by the way. I really don't want to see what will happen to the little elf. I should have chosen the otter. The otter should die. Because that would be funny...again.
-Jeff Tuffenstuff
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