The Work Journal of Artist John Amor » 2011

Photo Ref Friday

Posted by johnamor | Filed under Research

Tags: 1888, doorknob, photo ref friday, reference, victorian

Read more | Comments (0) | August 25th, 2011

Diamond Planet

Posted by johnamor | Filed under Research

And then a voice said, “You require more minerals…”

(Reuters) – Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond…

“The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon — i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun,”

via

Tags: Astronomy, science, space porn

Read more | Comments (0) | August 25th, 2011

Been tweaking the dialogue for Urban Animal #2 for the past week, and I’ve pretty much put most of it to bed. With the series already completely drawn, I’ve really no choice but to write in a pseudo-Marvel style — applying text that I hope works with the imagery. I had thought of leaving in the original dialogue from almost a decade ago, but a lot of it now feels verbose and cumbersome. I like to think that I am at least a little bit better at writing than I was back in college.

In reviewing my scripts and self-editing, I find that I am often guilty of using redundant dialogue, so I’ve been keeping to a set of guidelines as I go along:

1) Dialogue should be brief.
2) It should add to reader’s present knowledge.
3) It should eliminate daily conversational niceties.
4) It should push the narrative forward.
5) It should reveal the speaker’s character, directly or indirectly.
6) It should show relationships among people.

— Elizabeth Bowen

I have a fairly good ear for dialogue, but where it gets wonky is when I have to make different people talk in different ways. There’s this joke about Silver Age comics not exactly being known for their character-driven dialogue — when Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash get into a car and drive into a tunnel, if they continue whatever conversation they were having in the daylight, now that all you have is word balloons in the dark, you will have no fucking clue who is saying what. I heard this on a podcast once, and it just cracked me up. It speaks to the importance of having dialogue genuinely reflect the speaker’s personality, and that’s what I’m trying to build on today.

Tags: dialogue, make comics, narrative, script, writing

Read more | Comments (0) | August 23rd, 2011

Pencil Flex: Disney

Posted by johnamor | Filed under Art

It was Kat’s turn to pick a theme, and it sure wasn’t hard to tell she’s been itching to draw some Disney themed stuff for a while. I was apprehensive at first, as my style doesn’t exactly lend itself to anything this cartoony, but I ended up having a lot more fun than I thought I would. I had somehow forgotten that the House of Mouse had some of the hottest animated ladiez. Silly me.

Tags: aladdin, disney, esmeralda, hunchback of notre dame, jafar, jane, john amor, sketches, tarzan

Read more | Comments (0) | August 21st, 2011

Photo Ref Friday

Posted by johnamor | Filed under Research

Yes, I know it isn’t a photo.

Da Vinci owns your face.

Tags: cloth, drapery, leonardo da vinci, reference

Read more | Comments (0) | August 18th, 2011

Scripting for Comics: Best Practices

Posted by johnamor | Filed under Work

Here’s the thing. Writing a good story and effectively writing for comics are two totally different things. They needn’t be mutually exclusive, but there’s a learning curve for everyone, right? WRITE! (See what I did there?)

Anyway, below is a brief breakdown of best practices I’ve seen my collaborating wordsmiths use in their scripting format. Note, what is discussed here has nothing to do with actual story but more what the script looks like when it is sent to the artist and other people working on the book.

Comics are a collaborative medium and as such should, ideally, be easy for multiple heads to work on.

1) Indicate important elements at the first page of every scene. Even if the element doesn’t appear until later, if you want a character to wear a specific sort of hat, the pavement to have a specific cobble, or the skyline to have a certain hue to it, indicate this early on and not on the panel it comes into focus. Artists need to approach the scene with all these factors in mind beforehand, so it is vital that they know what they are or else they run the risk of drawing something completely different.

2) At the page header, include a panel count. Page 4 (6 panels). While true that an artist takes each and every panel as it comes to make it as eloquent as possible, also note that the page has a finite amount of real estate. How big you make the first panel directly affects the size of the last. That action sequence in the middle of the page directly affects your establishing shot up top. Letting your artist know in advance how many panels you’ll be needing mentally equips him as to how best to approach the page’s flow.

3) One action per panel. A number of writers, especially those coming from straight prose, forget that one panel can’t show a man opening a door and walking through it at the same time. It’s an understandable fault, but if you want to keep the artist sane, do try to remedy it as quickly as possible. If it proves a difficult habit to break, be open to your artist’s suggestions to either remove redundant panels or create addendum panels to help progress the page narrative. Remember that your artist wants to tell the story as clearly as possible as well, so help him help you.

That’s it for tonight. I love you all, and Izzy you owe me a backrub.

Tags: script, work ethic, writing comics

Read more | Comments (1) | August 15th, 2011

Pencil Flex: Star Wars

Posted by johnamor | Filed under Art

No artist worth his salt can run a sketch blog and not do Star Wars. And we are very very salty artists. I managed to whip out three pieces before I caught a nasty case of tonsillitis. Not back at full steam yet as I’m posting this, but certainly feeling a lot better than a coupla days ago. My midi-chlorian count was in the shit.

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