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 Art tips and techniques, reviews and interviews from my studio. Archived here and at World Famous Comics. Comics 101 for 03/25/2004 Star Wars Gamer #9 - Wraith Squadron: The Art of Infiltration -- Week Two: Thumbnail, Rough Sketch and Line Art After getting all of the photo reference I needed in place and having an idea of the composition more or less in my head, it was time to translate it down onto paper in the form of a rough sketch to show my art director my intention for the art. The first sketch was a rough thumbnail I created in my sketchbook based on the various poses I had photographed and had in mind to use for the scene. I'm keeping the drawing simple and loose and not too detailed yet since I'm just getting a feeling for positioning of the figures and what background elements to include in the scene. I have the idea of placing the action on an Imperial base so I gather reference of various Imp vehicles and hardware from my Star Wars books for inspiration. I liked the idea of overlapping the middleground of the troopers and the background vehicles with an Imperial bunker like the one seen in 'Return of the Jedi'. The strong diagonals of the structure would help give more movement to the composition and it's design would read quickly to help readers visually identify easily where the heroes were in the story. The dominant structure, like the figures in the foreground, establishes a nice sense of depth and perspective for the scene too. 
You can see here I'm playing with the idea of breaking the panel borders of the horizontal format I'm designing in to give my main characters abit more emphasis. I'll explain this more when we look at the third piece of art, the line drawing, in this article. In the next piece of art, the rough sketch, I come up with a tighter, larger and more detailed version of the thumbnail sketch to show my art director for concept approval. I end up second guessing myself though and change direction somehwhat by downplaying the dominace of the Rebels and keeping them confined in the borders here. I thought by making them larger like in the thumbnail it might detract from the concept that they should seem more stealth-like to the viewer. 
After seeing this tighter rough sketch, my art director calls me on the lack of dominance in the piece and I realized he was right when I compared it to the original design in the thumbnail. I email him my thumbnail art and we both agreed it made a stronger statement and a better, more balanced design. I then proceed to create the line art which I plan to ink and will end up coloring later. I'm working very closely from the photo reference now, incorporating all the various elements and details of costuming, weapons, background vehicles, props and likenesses, primarily my photo reference of Corinne as Tyria Sarkin and the various photos I gathered of Denis Lawson for his Wedge Antilles character in this scene. I didn't have an exact profile shot of Denis in this angle so I had to work from the various other angles of his portrait photos I had to render the view I wanted that looked consistent and believable as the character. I also thought it was important I played up the look on his face as that of concern and caution of their current situation to play off of the battle-ready stance of the Tyria character. As you can see here I second guess myself again and I changed the positioning of her hand back to what I planned originally in the thumbnail but didn't follow through with in the rough sketch. I have her giving Wedge a silent signal or countdown before they attack and blast the stormtroopers which I thought would lend to the mood of the scene and complement the weary Wraith leader's expression in a fun way. 
Even though the focus may seem to be on the Rebels who are composed on the right side of the scene, I design the composition to read from left to right. Having them on the right underscores the emphasis that I want the audience to identify first with the unsuspecting stormtroopers. This should give more credence to the idea that the Rebels are stealthy and are in hiding by keeping their forms confined behind the Imperial bunker seeming somewhat as secondary characters. But then again, the Rebels are the focus of the article and have more detail and are more unique looking in their costumes than the stormtroopers so by emphasizing their importance (i.e. having them break the borders) and creating distinctive dominance with their larger forms it does indeed bring abit more balance to the illustration like my art director requested. I eventually figure there's no definite right way to read the illustration and either way, screen left to screen right or vice versa, works well for the design. Just as long as the design works and the pencil art looks sharp I'm pleased. Check back here next week when we begin our look at the step by step digital coloring process. -Joe Recent Columns:
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