Personal: Comic Book Art Lesson #2

[mabfan]

Last night, gnomi and I returned to the Brookline Arts Center for our second lesson in comic book art with Raul Gonzalez.

Once again, we had a great time. Raul's goal for this lesson was for us to do quick sketches of people in motion, and then to do templates for the faces and bodies of our characters. After we did the sketches, Nomi managed to do three shots of a character -- a straight-on face, a three-quarters shot, and a profile.

Meanwhile, I got stuck on drawing Adam Strange as he appeared in a copy of DC Challenge, drawn by Curt Swan. I actually did manage to draw some pretty good faces, but not quite the ones I was supposed to. Still, I learned a little more about how to make a drawing of a face look like a specific character.

Raul's goal is to have us create and draw our own characters and story. I'm using a manuscript I wrote ten years ago for Denny O'Neil's class on comic book writing, about a cyberspace superhero called "The Loner." It's fun revisiting that story, even if from my current perspective it feels a little dated.

We don't have a lesson next week, but it looks like we may meet the week after that. Unfortunately, the space we're using in the BAC won't be available again for a while, but Raul had an alternate location in mind. If all goes according to plan, for the first time in our lives Nomi and I will end up at the Diesel, which we've heard so much about.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Did you actually go to a class taught by Denny O'Neil - or was it some form of distance learning?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

It was a real class taught by Denny O'Neil at the School of Visual Arts. We met Thursday nights in the Spring 1995 semester.

Denny was an amazing teacher. I still have all my notes from his class, although he incorporated much of it into his book on writing comics.

[(Anonymous)]

I do hope you'll post at least a few panels of that story here, Michael. I presume he's going to look almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Keanu? ;-)

-Jayme Lynn Blaschke

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Jayme, I'm a long, long way from having anything ready for public consumption... :-)

If I get a good sketch of the hero, I'll post it. He's going to look less like Keanu, more like Steve Rogers.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Denny was a great teacher. He didn't get upset when I interrupted him. :-)

In particular, he kept saying that writing comic books wasn't "rocket science," to dismiss writing comic books as something simplistic. I pointed out to him that I actually found rocket science a lot easier, because to do it properly you just follow the equations. He stopped using the comparison after that. :-)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I imagine it's harder to duplicate someone else's drawing than to draw something new, but it sounds like you're making rapid progress.