Tuesday 29 September 2009

Sinister Dexter - Advice

Right, advice time, please, people...
As well as the finished page 1, I've already posted here, I've got very rough page layouts for pages 2 & 3 (apart from 2 tricky panels) ...these tightened pencils for page 4:


...AND these (almost) finished pencils for page 5:


Now, I can't decide how's best for me to proceed. I could get finished pencils for all the pages done, but then I might not have any time left to ink anything else from this script - does that matter considering I've got a few pages of inks available to use in my portfolio?

My gut instinct says: Ink one of the pencilled pages here, probably page 4 and then if I have any time left at all, try to finish up the pencils for the remaining pages... besides that, I've got a sneaking suspicion that if I don't finish the pencils it won't matter that I'm not showing the whole sequential story, as I do have 6 sequential pages from an unpublished Dogbreath script.

Whaddayafink?

3 comments:

james corcoran said...

Now this is only me surmising because I only doodle for fun and have never submitted anything anywhere, but would it not be best to pencil the hell out of the story, to show how good your pencils, storytelling and layouts are rather than risk the samples looking half done if some is inked but not all. If an editor likes your stuff they'll ask to see more then you can show some of your other stuff that you have inked.

Conor said...

Are the 6 from Dogbreath inked already? If so, I'd say get these pencils tightened as James says. Better to show your best stuff in pencils, inks or colour than something not completed at any stage. I got that assumption wrong at Bristol and kicked myself all the way home. Surely you have enough material for a portfolio now??

You've put in the hours up to now Kev. Don't spoil it by including something that isn't as good as you can get it.

Just my opinion anyway. Oh, and I really like these finished pencils!

Emperor said...

Its a tricky one:

It'd make sense to have a complete story and editors do tend to want to see pencils to get a good of what you can do. That splash page kicks about three shades of ass and I think Tharg needs to see it as it is.

However, Tharg is also more interested in finished work than American editors would be (as they are just looking to slot you into the comic book making machine) so offering him work with different finishes on the can show him how you work at each stage. After all Tharg has already read the story and there must be a limit on the number of pages he can see and hitting him with three pages that knock it out of the park is probably better than having a dozen pages.

You have a finished first page so I'd probably suggest you have a look at what you've done and see if anything needs tweaking, although don't be too tempted to fiddle too much as what you've got looks pretty nifty so far. If you are happy then crack on and get the others done and if you have time return to these pages.

I'd also throw that splash page into the "pass it on" thread and challenge people to ink it, as I assume you are going to do that eventually yourself it'd be interesting to see what other people come up with for it.

Anyway I wouldn't worry too much as you have a tonne of stuff to show and you can always keep the Spider-Man/Punisher art tucked away at the back of your folder so you can casually flash that too if need be ;)