Wednesday 15 February 2012

Keeping Within The Lines

A few months back I'd set myself the personal deadline of December 2011 for my graphic novel "Throat" to be done by. Well, obviously that date's come and gone and, lo and behold, no book in sight. This is down to two main reasons, the first being a slight miscommunication between myself and the publishing company that had initially given me the advance to produce the first 50 pages; as it turns out that wasn't a guarantee that they'd publish the finished book, and by soldiering on and finishing the book I was very possibly being a little nearsighted. The second is that, while the book itself is indeed entirely drawn, I'm holding off releasing it until May when I'll know for sure if it has a publisher or not (if not I plan on hitting the expos with it). The benefit of this is that its given me the extra time to colour it all in.
All of it.
Like, 250 pages-ish.
On me lonesome.
I've set myself this suicidally tedious task for simple enough reasons - it makes the whole book that much more readable and, frankly, looks great (thank you, Almighty Photoshop). The plan was to only colour in the handful of preview chapters I've been putting out to promote it, but I've grown so enamoured of the bleachy colour palette and watercolour texture look that I really feel it would take the whole project to another level and make it truly worthwhile. The plan was always for the visual side of things to come second to the story - hence the angular, simplistic illustration style - but now it's looking like both elements will serve to complement one another far better.
"Shut UP, Ben. We GET it. You like colouring in. Buy a fucking colouring book already, you emotional retard."
Jesus, no need for that. Below are some examples of full-colour panel art to show off...well, the software capabilities if I'm honest:



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