Sooner or Later

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As promised here is my final for Visual Storytelling 1, and in my opinion, it is the best comic that I've done all around. Definitely the best coloring. There is still a few tweaks that I need to make, and in fact, I made some on the sixth page already in regards to the shadow on the figures and the balloon placement in the second panel. Originally the shadows on the figures were blue except done in multiply to give them that shadowy look, but it was still too blue that I decided to go back to what my normal shadow color is just tweak it a little to mach the nighttime color that I had given the environment. According to the critique it was difficult to figure out what balloon to read first in the second panel, and so I moved it around to make sure that there isn't any doubt. The other tweaks that need to be made are drawing related, and so it will be awhile before I deal with them.


I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to finish this story in time, and I was very fortunate that Vis. 1 was a 2 PM class because that gave me a little more wiggle room, not enough to sleep, but to finish it anyway. Aside from penciling over the thumbnails with the lightbox I did something else that was rather unique for me. I didn't pencil, ink, or flat the pages in order. I thought that it would be better if I worked on the easiest pages first, and in some ways, it worked out well. I finished inking the pages on the final Saturday of the Winter Quarter, and so I flatted, colored, and lettered six pages in two days, which is pretty impressive given that it took me close to a week to do three pages for Digital Coloring. This coloring job is much better than that one although I wish that I could have colored certain scenes based off of Pete and Allison's mood. I thought about it, but I just wasn't sure if that would enhance the story or hamper it. I'm still not sure. 


This story had changed a lot over the course of the entire quarter, but fortunately the true meaning never did, which I will get to in a moment. It was always my intent to have Linda break up with Pete at the prom, and the reason behind it always remained the same, but when it was suggested that I add a corsage to it as an important storytelling device I had to figure out what she was going to say when she handed it back to Pete. Although what Linda did was wrong I never wanted to vilify her, and so I had her say,  "I'm sorry, Pete. I hope that we can still be friends after this, but if we can't then I'll understand. I don't deserve THIS," as she's taking off the corsage. It was suggested that she needed to be more harsh, and in fact, my Vis. 1 professor, Doug Dabbs had said that perhaps she should tell Pete to take this ugly thing back. That certainly is harsh. My mom suggested that perhaps I should show how naive or stupid Linda is by telling Pete that she hopes that he can get his money back. I didn't want to vilify her, but I also didn't want her to come off as dumb either. I did take the professor's idea, but went another route with it.  


I had mentioned in the last entry that this was mentally based on a true story, and what I mean by that is that it is psychologically true. The events never took place...for me, at least. I was once told by three friends who are girls that girls are looking for a guy like me, they just don't realize it yet. Of course, I had no idea what they were talking about. However, when my mom told me something very similar it finally made sense. My mom basically told me that girls feel safe around me because I am nice, they don't feel threatened by me. That's what girls are looking for in the end. I don't know if that's true, but this is my response to it all. Pete Taylor is a nice guy who gets used by the girl who he had fallen for the moment he saw her, and the reason that Linda uses him was because he was nice. It is sort of referred in page 3, but it gets talked about more in a deleted scene where Pete mentions to his best friend that Linda's boyfriend is a motorcycle riding bad boy. He rants in the deleted scene that he wishes that he wasn't nice at all, maybe then he would be noticed. The deleted scene ends with Pete telling his best friend that he is just going to accept his role as the nice guy, and he turns around to leave. That's when the final panel of Page 3 takes place.


Pete had just gotten knocked down, and he was feeling rather down on himself, but he rises above it by asking Allison Strickland to a dance. Not only does he find love, but he also finds that courage to stand up for himself when Linda comes over to tell him that she wants him to take her home. After writing down what the true meaning behind this story was I realize that the title Sooner or Later is perfect. It certainly puts this story in a whole new perspective when one knows the true meaning behind it. When I adapt this story to animation it will contain the deleted scenes, and hopefully, the true meaning will be seen a lot more clearer.

A Vampire Mouse Update

Cover for The Vampire Mouse #1

The penciling and inking of my first mini comic is complete, and just in time for the start of the Spring Quarter. So the rest of the work that I have to do is all on the computer. So I can now make this announcement more official. The Vampire Mouse #1 The Price of Love Part 1 of 2 will premiere at the Fluke Mini Comics Festival, which is being held at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia from 11 AM to 6 PM on April 21, 2012. I don't know how many copies I should print out yet, and so it may very well be from 11 AM til supplies last. There will be pin-ups for sale as well, and so far all I know is that the pin-ups based on the covers of issues #1 and #2 will be at the table. I need to deal with a few issues before I can guarantee The Looney Tunes Universe, The Disney Universe, The Hanna-Barbera Universe, and The Doo Family Portrait. The pin-ups will $20 each, but if you're a SCAD student you will get my special discount, which has yet to be determined.

The Forgotten Announcement

It All Started with a Mouse

I never get tired of talking about It All Started with a Mouse, and I certainly hope that you haven't gotten tired of hearing me talk about it. As you can tell, this is the original version except without the dirty colors. I had mentioned that I had entered this into the 2012 SCAD Scholarship Gala, but what I had forgotten to mention was that the artwork sold. I wish that I knew for how much, but they wouldn't tell me since it was a silent auction. If it sold higher than my estimated price of $300 then I would be happy.

The Alienation by the Atlantic Station

Another story that I had forgotten to mention, and this one deserves to be heard by all artists in the Georgia area. Around midterms, my Environments class went down to the SCAD parking garage to learn how to draw vehicles, which is a useful thing know in this business. However, I was a little nervous about it since I had this idea that the owner of the vehicle would tell me to stop, which is completely ridiculous since we are all art students at SCAD. Really the only problem that I had that day were the smokers. I was trying to draw an SUV near the smoking section of the garage, and the smoke kept getting to me that I couldn't finish the drawing.


So that Friday I went out with a few friends from the class to practice drawing vehicles at the parking garage of the Atlantic Station, and that nervousness returned, but this time, we were not dealing with art students. I was picturing that something was going to happen, and I was right, but it was not the way I had thought it would happen. First, the  security guard on a segway told us that we could draw down in the garage as long as we aren't blocking the doors to the offices. That's fine. However, he comes back later completely humming a different tune. Now we weren't allowed to draw down in the garage at all without permission. Another guard joined him except on foot, and he was a lot nicer about it that he was trying to figure out a place that we could go to draw, but that segway officer just wouldn't have it - give a guy a pair of wheels it straight to his head. We were told that we weren't allowed to draw anywhere on the Atlantic Station premises without permission because of recent robberies. For all they knew, we could be drawing schematics of the stores to later rob. Oh, give me break! Though someday I would love to just go down there and sit on a park bench and just draw from my imagination. It has to be something wacky, something not seen anywhere in order to really show the true nature of the Atlantic Station. If a guard tries to get me to stop he has just opened himself up to a smart aleck comment especially if I am drawing vampires. The Atlantic Station has made a very, very crucial mistake. I am a Wright, and us Wrights are all bitter that we tend to hold grudges when angered. I went to the Atlantic Station nervous, but I left it completely angry. I will not forget this.


We wind up going to the Fox Sports Grill to draw the interior, and they didn't have a problem with us at all as long as we bought some food or a drink.

Final Thoughts

Tomorrow starts the Spring Quarter, and it will make the first time since the Spring of 2010 that I took three classes. I am looking forward to that. Sadly, it will also be a very difficult quarter since a lot of my friends will be graduating. That's going to be hard, but I will not say goodbye because that signifies that we might not see each other again, and instead I think that the last sentence of this blog is more appropriate.


Until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody!

The Perfect Gift

Page 1 of The Perfect Gift

Page 2 of The Perfect Gift

Page 3 of The Perfect Gift

The Winter Quarter has ended, and with that comes a plethora of art. Sorry about using such an odd word, but I just wanted to use it at least once. Okay, now that I got that out of my system let me introduce to you my latest story called The Perfect Gift. This is the only story that I will be introducing this week because I want this one and Sooner or Later to bask in the spotlight by themselves.  The Perfect Gift is a three page comic that I turned in to my Environments, Props, and Structures class on the final day of classes - Tuesday, March 13, 2012. I have to admit that I really thought that I wouldn't be able to finish this in time. I had a lot on my plate this past quarter, the most that I've ever undertaken since being at SCAD, and partially it was my own fault for writing a six page story for Visual Storytelling 1 when only a three page story was required. Well, completing a six pager does prepare me for Visual Storytelling 2, which I hear is close to or at least eight pages. I was trying to alternate between the two stories although as I was nearing the end Sooner or Later had to take precedent over this one because there were more pages and more to do...plus it was due first. So the final days of the quarter were very hectic that I had to literally keep telling myself that I was going to finish them time because I have never missed a deadline yet, and I certainly wasn't going to start now. I pretty much went without or with very little sleep for that final week. It was the only way to accomplish everything.

For those of you who did not read the last entry, the first two pages of The Perfect Gift were actually based on true stories. The third page is more based on what my subconscious tells me whenever I am looking for the perfect gift. I know that it cannot be found in an object, but it doesn't keep me trying. I'll get into this more next week, but Sooner or Later is loosely based on a true story, and why I say "loosely" is because it is more in line with the mental aspects of the truth.

My Environments' professor, Nolan Woodard helped me a lot even though he has no idea how much of a help he was. I was under the impression that these three pages were supposed to be colored, and I am not sure how I came to this impression. It really doesn't matter how in the long run. So one day in class I was close to completing the flats for the first page when Nolan came over to see how I was doing, and he thought that I was working on another class' assignment, but when I told him that I wasn't he told me that I didn't have to color these pages. First, I felt like I had just wasted my time with the flatting, but then I saw the bright side to this. I didn't have to color, and if I didn't have to color then I could jump right to lettering as soon as I was done inking. That thought not only cut my work down considerably, but it also made sure that I would be able to sneak in a little bit of sleep on the final week. If I had to color and letter NINE pages in a week there would have been no sleep at all. 

The Perfect Gift was done in a different way than anything that I've done in the past save for...The Defining Moment and The Peter Grayson Pin-Up. All three of those works were done by placing a blank sheet of Bristol over the thumbnails and lightboxing over them, which really speeds things up. Though this was the first time that I had done this method with comic pages, and it was something that I had intended to do for this project because of the six pager that I also had to do, but I wound up doing it for both projects, which I think was very wise. Of course, I would not be me if I didn't have some quarrel with the thumbnails at some point and change them. I stayed true to the thumbnails until it came down to the mall environment, and that's when everything changed.

Another change from the thumbnails to the final was perhaps the greatest change that I could've made, and it was a last minute decision. In the story, it is never said who this mysterious man on the bench is, but in the script, I said that he was an angel. I was just about to ink the third panel in the third page when the idea struck me to give the audience a hint to who he was by adding the sun behind his head to represent his halo. It was something so subtle that no one probably would think much about it, and Nolan figured it out since he had read the script. I had a difficult time with the placement as I had considered placing it right behind his head with only the top part of the sun showing similar to the Holy figures in Renaissance paintings, but I didn't like the looks of it, and so I went with the over the head placement, which I think worked out better.

When this was being critiqued on the final day there weren't very many negative comments, and it might be because we were kind of running out of time and trying to rush through things that the class kept it to themselves. If that's the case I wish that they hadn't because I am always searching for perfection, and any help in achieving that would be greatly appreciated. So if anyone from my Environments class has any constructive criticism about these three pages feel free to get a hold of me by any means necessary, which includes tackling me in the hallways. The comments that were made have already been dealt with, and so the version that you see here is the updated version. My friend, Lisa had mentioned that she had thought that the woman at the mall kiosk was the friend that Eric was buying the gift for, and so Nolan suggested that I fix that in the lettering by moving  the "Hello, Sir" in the fifth panel of the second page to the fourth panel to make it clearer that the woman was a stranger. In the third page, Nolan suggested that I get rid of the black of the trees and the bench because they were conflicting with the mall doors and the city in regards to depth. That was the most time consuming, and I am not too pleased with the benches because they don't look perfectly in perspective any longer. He also suggested flipping the panels on the third page, and that was the easiest although it did force me to move and sometimes reconstruct my word balloons. 

Even though I do like the story and will eventually color it as it was meant to be seen I don't like it as much as I like Sooner or Later, but of course, I am comparing it to a story that is similar to It All Started with a Mouse in regards to how spectacular it is. With a few tweaks here and there Sooner or Later could reach that pinnacle of perfection, but more on that next week.

More From Environments

The First Church of Christ Scientist_3-Pt Perspective

Georgia Power_3-Pt Perspective

Here are more drawings from Environments, Props, and Structures, and I won't go into too much details about them. This is the 3-pt perspective drawings of the First Church of Christ Scientist and the Georgia Power building, both in Downtown Atlanta. These drawings are very memorable to me because I got the living daylights freaked out of me in the class after we critiqued these three point drawings. Anyone from my Environments class or even in the SCAD-Atlanta Sequential department knows exactly what I am talking about.

I made an interesting discovery after I got my grade back for this. I got a B+ for these, and I got an A for my two-point perspective drawings of my kitchen and living room while the grades for the drawings done from imagination weren't that great. That has led me to believe that I am much better at drawing from life/photos than I am from my imagination. I have no idea why. If you have a clue, feel free to tell me.

The Castle of Ferdinand_3-Pt Perspective

Salem

These are the two 3-pt drawings done from my imagination, and they both are connected to the Vampire Mouse mini comic.  The project was called "Gotham and Metropolis"...or was it "Metropolis and Gotham"? It doesn't matter. We had to create one environment that was like Metropolis, clean and law abiding while the other environment, Gotham, was dirty and over run by crime. I decided to introduce the Castle of Ferdinand the Vampire Monkey, and the run down castle is in the middle of a town that is overrun by vampires. Although Ferdinand is a good vampire in the mini comic he doesn't have complete control over his minions. They do what they like unless given the order not to, but Ferdinand didn't give an order not to kill the living since he was hoping that they would just follow his example. Since the drawing shows a vampire monkey sucking the blood from a woman they don't care about his example. The other environment is Salem featuring the giant rabbit that the mice ride on for transportation and Samantha Taylor and Cotton Mouse, characters from the first issue.

Unfortunately you will not be seeing the second project from the class, the one that followed my A, because it was the worst one that I've done. Funny, really because I went into the critique liking the Victorian England sitting room and the Union Workhouse, but I came out of the critique wanting to destroy the drawings. They should be glad that I haven't lit them up yet. It was the worst critique that I've ever had. There was nothing good said about the drawings. It was just one constructive negative comment after another that the list that I wrote down was the length of a typical grocery list. I had considered redoing it for extra credit just to turn the C - a generous C because it would have been worse if I was the grader - into a B, but I was so swamped with finals that I didn't bother. Perhaps someday I will pull it out and redo it, but for myself, not for anybody else or even for a grade.

Vampire Mouse Update

Saturday, April 21, 2012 is the release date for the first Vampire Mouse mini comic, and there is still so much to do beforehand. I am happy to report that I am finished with the penciling and inking of the comic pages although I do need to go back and add some of the ideas that Prof. Schweizer had suggested. However, for the most part, the pages are all in post production, which mainly includes adding color in certain areas of the comic.

Better Late Than Never, I Always Say

I try to correct any mistakes or...mention any discoveries that I've made that make a previous statement of mine invalid as soon as it comes to my attention. Though sometimes time can be my worst enemy that I may forget to do so. It has been close to a year since I wrote the entry, but better late than never,  I always say. Shortly after, I returned to SCAD-Atlanta from taking two quarters off I wrote about my 20th Century Art professor, Keri Watson. It has been my experience that art history professors have all received their doctrine, and the idea that my 20th Century professor would be called Dr. Watson thrilled me to no end. Every professor who I've had who were doctors have always introduced themselves with the doctor title. However, when she didn't introduce herself as Dr. Keri Watson I was thrown for a loop that I thought that my assumption was wrong, and that's what I wrote in that entry. It would turn out that my assumption that I was wrong was wrong because a few weeks later she gave a lecture in the Gallery Space at 4C in SCAD-Atlanta, and finally, she was introduced as Dr. Keri Watson. I was supposed to write a correction in the next blog entry after that lecture, but so much time had passed that I had forgotten. I actually had read that entry not long ago, and I saw what I wrote, but I felt that it has been almost a year that it was kind of a moot point to correct it. However, NOTHING is ever a moot point. If something needs to be corrected, correct it no matter how much time has passed. It only becomes a moot point when you're dead. That's my tip for the day.

Final Thoughts

Next Sunday I will post the six page story Sooner or Later, and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do. This week I will also be getting back to work in writing the script to adapt the story into an animated short, and it will include scenes that were cut from the comic due to length. So at some point I will start posting the storyboards and character animations.

So until next time, this is Billy Wright, wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.