Bisoncart!!!

"Hope for Sale"

Some friends of mine asked if I could contribute something for a gallery show that's tied into a sketch/improve group that they're involved in. Not really thinking of myself as much of that type of artist, they told me the theme (which is Hope for Sale), and I came up with the idea of doing a short story as a comic page. I also figured it'd be a good learning experience and practice going into a short comic I'm doing for an anthology with some friends.

One of the biggest challenges was getting all of the right storytelling poses and breaking them into panels that would all fit onto one standard size comic page (I just liked the idea of using that type of guideline). After finally getting it laid out, I once again learned that my roughs tend to be far too rough, which means I have to do a lot more decision-making putting down tightened pencils. Also, I tend not to realize how many hands I'm actually putting into shots, and halfway through I start cursing myself for leaving myself all these tricky hand poses I now have to design. Despite spreading the final pencils over two days (1/3 the first day, 2/3 the second) , I notice that I didn't really start to loosen up until maybe the 10th panel, after which the drawings look a lot more loose and confident, I think.

What else did I learn? No matter how loose/light you may lay things down, there's going to get to a point where it won't erase if you redraw it too much. Panel 5, I'm looking at you.

Strongest Panels I think are the bottom row, and the two in the middle of row 3. Weakest? the first two in Row 3, and the first 3 panels in Row 2. Which is funny, as they were some of the strongest poses I thought I had when roughing it all out.