To whet everyone’s appetites, here’s the first page of a short comic I just finished about Roger Fenton’s photographic exploits during the Crimean War. The comic is partly a response to this piece in the NYT, which discusses In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Fenton’s most famous shot. This was some wild speculation about where the image came from with a healthy dose of artistic experimentation thrown in. I’m getting more and more excited about watercolors these days, and wish I’d had more time to tackle painting this, but I may still go back and add some more detail. The inking was all done with a fountain pen in a sketchier style than I generally go for. Any thoughts on the difference greatly appreciated. I’ll post another page tomorrow. Enjoy!
I like the sketchy inks and watercolours. It gives it an aged feel. I’m not crazy about the pencil lines. Anyway nice work as usual
Agreed — I also wasn’t a fan of how the non-outlined balloons came out on the first page (even if I took out those crappy-looking pencil lines). I was going for something akin to the awesome non-outlined balloons Emily Carroll manages to make in her comics, but it really didn’t happen. If I’m honest these were a super rush job for a class deadline on Sunday evening, so the painting really falls off after the first page, and there’s a lot more cleanup to do, but there just wasn’t any time. As I go back and keep working on the painting/cleanup I’ll probably post new versions. Thanks for the feedback!