Dutch Comic-Con Part 3 in a series -Making the Exclusive

Part 3 – Making the Exclusive

Info on Dutch Xmas Con HERE

When we last left our hero he had surveyed the landscape of previous Dutch Comic-Cons and judged them to be serious business.

These people know how to put on a Comic-con, and the people who go appear to know what they are looking for. I’m not just going to want to roll in there without tipping my hat.  Some sort of “Exclusive” is called for here…

Any baseball pitcher can tell you that sometimes you can be too smart for your own good…and convince yourself that using the correct pitch is wrong because it is obvious and not unexpected …as obvious as it may be to throw a fastball at the time, a well thrown fastball is going to get the job done in that instance.

So…with that in mind, Krampus shall be the central character of the cover of an Exclusive mini-comic I’ll bring to the show.  And it’s time to get that done, which is good, because other stuff I’ve been working on has been giving me FITS!  and when that happens taking some times to do something completely different can help.

Apparently my brain was so grateful for a breather that it spilled out a lot of usable ideas. Maybe too many-

There’s some decent ideas there…but nothing quite grabs me.

This has some merit too, but I dunno. Lemme polish just a bit and see…

Nah, It’d make a nice print, but as a cover…meh.

This next one is interesting.  The problem with it, as is the problem with a lot of rough sketches, is that once you start to refine them they lose their charm/life.  The sketch is good as a sketch but it’ll have impossible anatomy or perspective that is visually good but technically way off.  One thing that makes my “style” unique is that the figures are cartoony, yet precise and live in a precise world.  I use legit vanishing points religiously…as opposed say Dr.Seuss where the backgrounds are as wild and cartoony as the figures.  I’ve never been comfortable with that for some reason…I need to have the backgrounds technically sound. That makes converting a sketch into a polished illustration…tedious.  Sometimes you can nail it by screwing around and using a series of vanishing points/horizon lines to capture the visual impact of the original sketch-

Once you start down that road, you are teetering on the whole thing being B.S. and you might as well not even use any vanishing points…and it just becomes a crap shoot of trial and error until you convince yourself you have the foundation for an illustration that has life and charm but is still technically sound.

In the one below the cage and walls have one horizon line/set of vanishing points and the oven and table have another.

Then you continue on and realize the figures also only looked good because they were wrong, and once you draw them correctly they sort of lose that special something.

That whole thing to me is sterile and devoid of the charm the first scribble had.  Life could be brought back to it in the inking, but the more I look at it…this is also not so great of a cover.  I’d be a nice print and I’ll probably finish it for that.

SO…back to random Ideas…

Yeah….that one (with the arrow) !  That’s the one.  It’s captures the imagination, makes you want to know what’s going on.  More than the others, you look at it and you see a scene…not an illustration. The one on the upper left is good too, but it’s a little to standard.  It doesn’t have the danger and sick delight that the other one has.

But will it hold up when I refine it?

Yeah…I’d say it does.  And if I can nail the expressions right on inking…this’ll be good.

Played around with the terrified kids a bit…

They still look terrified even when refined.  I drew it out and am working on final pencils now…then I’ll ink the bastard, color it and we’ll have ourselves a respectable cover for the Dutch X-mas Con! (sorry these pics are crappy, I’m good at drawin’ stuff, not photographing it)

Sometimes the stuff you fret over just works out all by itself when you go to final pencils.  Krampus’s hand for instance.  I wouldn’t have bet it would have turned out so well so easily but it did.

  The curls on the top of the cages however…those are going to be a B*TCH!

So…that’s were I am with that.

Which leaves me to wonder this…and perhaps if you are from the Netherlands you can help me out.  Which prints should I bring?  Should I bring a lot? A few? None?  I have no real clue on that.

Info on Dutch X-mas Con HERE

Info on who the hell I am HERE

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www.arseniclullabies.com