Weekly report

I've been a very busy bee!

What have I done?

At the time of writing I have one and a half pages to go. This time last week I had 8 pages left to draw, so I've made pretty good progress if I do say so myself. As I've said before, I've been concentrating on line art, so that I can do this speedily. I wanted to get the lines down so that at least the story was drawn. Usually I will draw a page and colour it at the same time, so that I concentrate on the storytelling in that page and keep a consistency in colour and tone between the different sections of the chapter.

Now I've only got one page to go I need to start thinking about how the colour is going to go down. Ther are a few different locations in this chapter and I want each one to have a specific colour and mood. But that is next.

I also started going over the pages of Silverstar and editing the lettering. In the first few chapters all the font was in 10pt, so I went through and changed it to 9pt to match the later chapters. I also went and reordered some of the balloons and changed some of the dialogue to match with later chapters. There is a little but of art that I want to change for continuity purposes, but nothing drastic.

Storytelling secrets.

This week I have another example for you. Then it's onto some ideas on how to make the idea of the 5th character work for you. There are some spoilers here for Rings of Power so read at your own peril.

The final example I want to talk about is Middle Earth from Tolkien’s legendarium. Middle Earth is a location where the bad guys what to strip out all the resources and dominate all the other inhabitants, and the good guys want to preserve peace. But Middle Earth is different as a character location because it fights back. Now, before you start, I know that in the few instances it does fight back there are other characters involved, but this is all part of the personality of the world and the message of the story.

When the Numenoreans assail Valinor, the world changes shape from flat to spherical by the hand of Eru, the god of Middle Earth. Since he is all knowing and all seeing, the curving of the world can be seen as an act by the location itself. When Saruman burns Fangorn Forest, the forest fights back with the help of the Ents. The Ents are characters, but they are also part of the environment and represent the world fighting back against the injustice.

When Sam and Frodo are trapped on the burning side of Mount Doom, the Eagles come to rescue them representing the force of the sky and the air. Middle Earth is another essay in itself, but there are lots of ways that Tolkien makes it a character in his stories.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you on Monday for more Silverstar!

Tioraidh an-dràsta!