These Three Days

Well, a busy few days...

Saturday saw me attending Launchpad in Birmingham, a one-day seminar for aspiring comic creators. While I wouldn't rule out working for comics publishers, I feel telling my own stories may be the way to go as it allows far greater freedom. It's still insightful getting portfolio reviews so I showed mine to DC editor Joey Cavalieri (possibly the vaguest review I've ever had) and John McCrea (who's comments were much more helpful). Joey's comments did reflect comments made in a lecture by Klaus Janson...

...now anybody who knows me knows I'm far from a Janson fan as aesthetically his work is too rough and (deliberately) messy for my liking, but I respect his ability and his knowledge: i still have his book on pencilling (though yes, I did pass on his inking book). His talk was confident and full of little nuggets: both confirming things I already knew but also reminding me of things I'd forgotten and introducing a few new ideas. I learned a lot from his talk and for that alone, launchpad was worthwhile. However, I also went to see an inking demonstration by him that I ducked out of to attend what turned out to be a hilarious talk by John McCrea that topped off an informative day...

I also picked up a few art supplies, a brush pen (more chunky than the one I own) and a set of grey tone markers (not Copics unfortunately but I've been assured they last longer despite being non-refillable). I'm a huge brushophobe but after experimenting with a Dr Strange pic recently, I was eager to push the same colouring techniques. With the new brush asking to be tried, I thought I'd give it a shot at the same time and pencilled a piece that I intended to brush-ink and computer colour.

I chose Professor Zoom (mainly so I could also place it on The Weekly Art Board) but drew it as the Flash: I may want to do a Flash/Zoom version so by drawing it as the Flash, I only had to reverse the art and black in the emblem (which is why I didn't draw it as Zoom then flip it as the Flash). Far from the greatest drawing and the inking is very uneven...but surprisingly I managed to ink the whole character with the brush. It's not bad and I like the boldness the brush line gets but think I'll stay with pens for comic art but will definitely use the brush in future for other things.

Originally i was going to draw Green Lantern after having seen the movie this weekend: thankfully, it wasn't the disaster I had hoped for as it had a lot going for it. Extremely faithful to the comics, I can't see why people are complaining about the info dump opening the film: almost every sci-fi and fantasy film from the 80s opened with a voice over or opening text, something that never hurt Star Wars. Anyway, Reynolds was good as Hal and most of the rest of the cast is great, especially Sinestro. Blake Lively isn't film-destroyingly terrible as Carol Ferris but is an emotionless plank (thankfully she has a nice wardrobe so you at least have something to look at while she's babbling).

Like X-Men: First Class, the film zips along fairly well as it doesn't get mired down in A and B plots but there are some large structural problems. They are not exactly plot holes but occasionally a character appears with little reason or explanation as to why they're there: Amanda Waller's appearance is pointless as her presence is never really explored so only if you know her from the comics will you suspect a government connection, for instance. There seems to be a few scenes dropped or lines cut somewhere.

Green Lantern's another Big mac of movies: could have been a lot better, could have been a lot worse but it's perfectly fine while you're experiencing it but afterwards you wish you'd chosen something a bit more substantial...although that green pickle is really good...