Sketches in Blue

Wow, that sounds kind of poetic...

Today I wanted to share with you some sketches of the project. Previously I've been quite hesitant to put early sketches on the blog because I only wanted to show good stuff. Eventually though I've been thinking that it can't really hurt to show them, it's a piece of the process!

Here is the thumbnail for the first page!

As you see here, I've been working really loose and my main goal has been to get the pacing and the composition right, so the reader will be able to follow the story, that has been key in these sketches.

When I was satisfied with the composition I have enlarged the sketch on two sheets of paper, this because it's easier when I'm going to scan them, and its easier in handling the sheets, instead of having a big ass sheet of paper! When publishing it will also get easier (I think) because I can then choose to publish it in half pages or in full pages.
As you can see here I've been working very loose at first, just to get the pacing and the composition right (yet again). When I'm (again) satisfied with it, I've worked more with getting the characters in there.
For this I've used a blue pencil, why you ask? Well, me and my blue pencil don't go that far back, actually! When you open a book about comics or animation, you will soon see beautiful sketches done in either blue or red pencil. When I went to animation school I tried the blue pencil for some sketches, but it kind of went south... I was working on my thesis project, and I was using a blue pencil on some drawings. At that time my sketching was very fast and very... inaccurate, I could end up with lots and lots of lines, and think for yourself having lots of lines in blue, it felt like I'd used a blue crayon! And when I scanned it, it was even worse! So that use of the blue pencil meant more work, so I put that pencil in the pencil jar and there it has been laying around until now... kind of. When I have animated a walk cycle or something like that I've used the blue and red pencil to distinguish the right or left arms and/or legs. Lately I've seen some comics artists using blue pencil and I thought that I should give that a go, and thus far I like it, the lines get kind of loose and you can easily correct them. So maybe I'm a blue pencil guy after all!

Take care!