Comic Report #44.1 - Keeping Perspective

This week I focused on getting the next comic page done, and I fell short of my big ambitions. I was hoping to have the whole thing done by today but I hit a snag in the middle two panels. It's something that happens to me a lot whenever I need to be very precise with environmental details, I get fatigued cross-checking my references to make sure the right buildings are in the right spots.  All of my characters are loaded into my internal RAM, but environmental details are like pulling up data from an external ROM, and it slows me down when my work requires me to do a lot of that kind of call-up.

The way I look up details like this is to go back in my archive and check panels from other shots I've drawn to see where which building was the last time I drew it.  I have one panel clipped out and saved to my work computer desktop that I will pull up for references:

... but the comic is currently taking place in a part of the town that I've drawn very few panels in, and its at an angle I've never put the comic at before either, so I'm seeing sides of buildings I've never drawn before, which means I'm juggling both known buildings and unknown buildings and trying to fit them all together in a way where a reader can still parse where in the town the scene is taking place.  I try to maintain this internal logic so that Tombstone can be a -place- and not just a string of generic buildings.  One of the pages I use the most as a reference point for this part of town is page 499, where Lizzie and Alice are heading to their home for the first time 

In this panel I drew the little barbershop, the big building with the thick crown pattern that's visible from all sorts of angles and the PIZZA building, a landmark with five squares hanging off the side.  I didn't really draw much of the town beyond that, though, so I also tried to use the panel from page 546 to see what it was I drew beyond that point:

This one has the bus wall more clearly defined. The streetlight coming in from the left is a common feature, and you can see the PIZZA sign again.  The road down where Sheriff Tanner lived is lit up bright, as that's the area where his murder took place.  You can see this from Lizzie's vantage point inside the bus, so you can tell she's in the right place to find a lead on her mystery solving.  The old lady who saw someone exit the bus is out snooping about, and you can see her from the bus window, which was the key point I wanted to convey here.  I might have gotten some of the buildings wrong but for the most part I think I've got the key landmarks I need to be there in place.

One of the concerns I have when I draw all these night scenes is I'm not making my lights light enough.  I want to sell the fact that it's dark out but I also need to maintain enough contrast that the art looks clear and good.  I think in the first panel, in the reflections of the buildings in the windows, I don't think I have the contrast where I need it to be.  I'll probably go back in and bring out the brightness at certain points to help flesh it out, but I'll make that pass when the rest of the comic is finished.  It's difficult and I do a lot of noodling to get it just right but I've committed to drawing this scene in night time so I'm going to see it through to the end.

The last two panels of the comic should be a cinch to paint so I should have this page finished by Monday. I'm really excited to get that last panel painted.  There will be another post when the textless page is ready to go, so keep an eye out for that.  Thanks for reading!