Work Your Way Up

I've only recently realized that with pretty much everything I do that's creative, I start small/basic and work my way up to larger/detailed. I've been doing this for years, but it's only because I explain my processes on this blog that I saw the obvious.

Yet another example of this principle is the thumbnail. I don't know why they are called this. A thumbnail is a small--and in some cases very small--sketch of the composition rooted down to its most basic shapes. I've done them as small as an inch tall before, rolling through tons of ideas until I start getting something I like. Lots of beginning artists like to go right into the detail work when they start a drawing. I know I did when I first started learning. The cool details are very enticing and a lot of fun, but you can't start laying bricks without an architectural plan. As I grew as an artist, I learned that doing these basic rough sketches can be just as fun and educational as the detail work.

This example is a rather large thumbnail measuring 3x6 inches. I did it large because I already had an idea that I liked, and I wanted to get moving on this project. Also, I did a few smaller ones in my sketchbook I leave in my locker at work. So there. I usually have blocked out everything in pencil at this stage, and make mental notes of where shadows go. But, in my experience, it's always better when I grab a sharpie or brush-pen and start drawing in shadows as large shapes.

A "True Grit"y Remake

The remake is extremely popular these days. Especially if it's a darker, grittier version of the original.

The Good: Sometimes it reignites interest in the original material. Advances in technology (or even storytelling itself) can even help the original story be holistically better than when it was first released. A current example might be the "Tron: Legacy" movie that's coming out next week. I genuinely think that the technology that was around at the time of the original film simply couldn't accommodate what the story needed to be visually successful.

The Bad: Fans of the original rarely like remakes, reasoning that you can never replace a classic, or even do it justice. Sometimes the pendulum swings the other way and people focus a lot on the remake and forget about the original. While I'm a huge fan of the Christopher Nolan Batman films, I'm afraid that people have really forgotten how amazing the Tim Burton ones were.

The 'grim and gritty' trend is nothing new. Debates could go on endlessly as to where it really started; I'd say it's more of a steady evolution that took decades. "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns," "High Noon," EC Comics, and Quentin Tarintino are all from various decades which had various trends surrounding them, but each were revolutionary in their own way. I would hardly think, though, that the 'grim and gritty' approach is a holistic improvement on storytelling. Half the time it's inappropriate for a story. It's merely popular, just as several decades ago, the more idealistic, colorful, cleaner films, comics, and TV shows were popular.

I just watched the original John Wayne "True Grit." And I think comparing it with the new Coen Bros. movie that's getting ready to come out is a great example of what I'm talking about. The original film is a classic western, but I found it a little strange that with all the characters' talk of Rooster Cogburn's 'true grit' and the story's message of how lawless criminals will act, the look of the film was clean, idealistic, and at times pastoral (which was popular at the time). This new film that's coming out seems to let the visuals of the film echo the story's undertone of Maggie's (a stubborn, good Christian girl) immersion into the cold, dark reality of the west.

Time will tell how these trends really affect storytelling in general. Just know that someday, the bright, sunshine, Pollyana-style stories will be popular, and some director will want to remake "Terminator" where instead of guns, there are flowers.

Gee, she's really...um, fat. REALLY?

This was my first time of actually trying to figure out how fat is distributed across the body. Once upon a time, I thought if I just added a gut onto a character, they'd become believably fat. Sadly, this is not the case...for anyone.

Fat is distributed pretty much all across the body. In this chart, the male remains the same height and head size, but they grow wider all over. It would look odd if the person had a large belly, but well toned arms. What's most especially important is that the legs remain proportionate enough to hold up the body (when a morbidly obese person becomes tired due to walking and running though, they will feel it in the legs, but this is also due to the metabolism and energy level; the legs--though fat is weaker than muscle--are still proportionally sound). You might have heard of the term "big-boned." Everyone knows this is just a joke, but while drawing this diagram, I found it interesting that the skeletal structure is basically the same as the body grows.

One thing I want to also point out is something I noticed a few years ago in art school. While the idealized human body is a beautiful thing, there is also a sense of beauty I can't help but love in the way the human body adds fat. When fat grows on a body, the body has large gentle curves as opposed to the various bends and knobs that muscles accentuate. With more weight, rolls start to form, which form incredibly beautiful lines across the torso that would never be seen on a lean figure. Artists have focussed for millennia on the idealized human figure (which changes from time to time), but perhaps one of the most under-appreciated forms of beauty is the obese figure.

Copernican Revolutions

I've been putting of posting this week not (only) because I'm lazy, but mainly because I haven't been drawing much; I've been writing. Writing is a horrible experience, unless you enjoy pacing, sitting at a computer, talking to yourself, and thinking of what eventually becomes pointless ideas, for hours, and in the end have only a sentence to show for it.

One of the best helps I've ever gotten is Robert McKee's book "Story," which is one of the Bibles of screenwriting, and a very good tool for writing fiction in general. What helped me a lot this time around was his setup of character depth and how characters affect one another.

First of all, character depth is not a handful of character attributes that might be oddly put together. And it's not a character being committed to one idea far over all others. A character becomes interesting when he or she has inner conflict of ideals. If a man claims to be brave, but in a crisis is cowardly, then you're onto something. If a woman is known by all others as being useless and uninteresting, but her closest friends see that she has an amazing talent that can easily take her to the top of the world, then you've got the beginnings of a story.

Going off of this, a well-constructed story has characters that bring out specific qualities in the protagonist. Around certain characters, a person is happy and attractive, but around one very important secondary character, they become depressed and repulsive. In this approach, a writer designs characters around the protagonist like a miniature solar system. It can be said that a minor character's job is to force the protagonist to reveal a contradictory quality about themselves.

For the story I'm working on, I have a character who originally created a business because it's his passion. But a national company's competition makes money scarce, and he meets a publicist. This publicist is all about marketing and building hype, and the character gets so caught up with the newfound fame ("finally, recognition for what I do!"), that he doesn't have time to do the work that he originally loved. That's the basis, and there's a lot of development that I've done with it, but I'm not sharing it because then you won't read the comic!!!!

Idealized

Many people complain that comics, movies, tv, etc. all present unrealistic images of men and women. This is very often true, and I'd never disagree with this idea. This concept of using idealized people in stories and art is not new, though; it dates back well into the ancient times (warriors aren't typically as awesome as Achilles, women aren't as beautiful as Cleopatra, no one is as wise as Solomon, and so on). So, if people have been frustrated with unrealistic people in their stories, why do storytellers keep using them?

First off, when going to a movie, who would you rather look at for two hours: a fat, ugly, woman, or a super-model? Purely on a surface level, that answer is obvious. Think of that issue from a director's standpoint, though. The director knows that at any point in their movie, you can walk out and demand your money back. Therefore, it is the director's job to keep the film visually interesting. Nothing is more visually interesting than a beautiful woman. NOTHING.

This is why movies with bad plots will have beautiful women showcased in them (regardless of acting abilities). Either the director knows that the story is stupid, and must distract you from that with muscles and cleavage, or the director doesn't know that and is therefore not skilled at their craft enough to know that a story must have more to it than beautiful people. Either way, you get the same result of a bad movie with hot men and women.

Heroes and heroines most often need to visually stand out from the crowd. This is why in romantic comedies, the two leads are good looking, and the "best friend" roles are cliches in that they don't look as good.

Stories can most definitely have the average everyman, an overweight nerdy girl, or a frail old man as the lead. It's all dependent on the story itself. In character design, the ideal figure is often approached as if it's the basic template of a human. The ideal is the starting point, and afterward the artist adds or subtracts weight (in muscle or body fat), height, physical details (hair, clothing style, tattoos/piercings, etc.) and facial composition.

Numbers

1x1.618. Looking at a sea shell, the parthenon, light switches, and your face, you will see this. It's the perfect ratio, rectangle, and mean. Nature creates things in this formula, and man naturally finds it the most pleasing. Euclid said "A straight line is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the less." Beginning with a square, you draw a line from the middle point of one edge to an opposing corner, and make that line the radius of a circle. The point directly above the center point is the top of the golden rectangle.

"What," you might ask, "the hell, am I talking about?" Back in ancient Greek times, numbers were kind of a big deal. Pythagoras was a philosopher that was all about numbers. Much of what we know about music comes from what the Greeks knew about the application of ratios and numbers to lengths of stretched chords that when plucked, made specific sounds. Phidias, when constructing the parthenon, knew of this ratio, and implemented it into the structure's ultimate design. Today, mathematicians, architects, musicians, and artists like me, still use it. I'm not entirely sure why a rectangle with these proportions is such a big deal, especially since there are tons of studies on this idea. What I do know is that this ratio works all throughout nature, and it's a tried and tested shape/line/design that is proven over the centuries to be aesthetically pleasing.

I was trying to think of a size for a new illustration I'm doing, and I thought I'd give the golden rectangle a shot. When I laid out where the image would be on the page, I have to admit, it's a good rectangle.

You're so Vein

No, this isn't a self-portrait. I know you were thinking it was. This was actually a result of doing some research for a new project. I'd been looking up reference on bulging muscles, and noticed the little detail of the revealed veins.

I have no idea why the body does this. I'm sure there's a very interesting explanation that my friends in medical school could give me, but what's important is that when the human body works out way more than I do, veins start popping up. It's a little detail, and it'd be easy to just leave it at that.

But there are a few things to keep in mind when bulking up a character. I've heard many times from many girls that a guy that is the ultra-buff, body-builder type is not really that attractive. Especially once you start getting into the body-building competition musculature: it's almost gross. Physical, sexual attraction is more related to the lean, toned muscle definition, rather than the hulking lump of testosterone. I think this type of muscular proportion hits on the more primitive, barbaric, archetype than the heroic, attractive one. Conan the Barbarian, Joe Kubert's Tor, Samson, The Incredible Hulk, Hercules, Thor, etc. are all examples of that pure, unbridled, raw power within the human psyche that simply has the desire to hit things. This type of character is different from the archetype exhibited in Captain America, Achilles, King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, etc., who are if nothing else, a bit more well-rounded characters.

What does this have to do with veins? I think that a good way to help reinforce a character's physical strength is to have the muscles start to show some veins around them. But be aware that this might trigger an idea in the audience's mind that makes them think of that barbaric, violent, potentially physically un-attractive, character type. This could be fore good or ill, depending on the context.

Are the Dutch Known for Being Crazy?

So, this is my first apology for not posting at all last week. One of my goals is to have this problem on a rare-to-never basis.

What I can talk about is a camera angle trick I learned a few years ago in a class on the fundamentals of making comics. It's called the "Dutch Angle." I have no idea why it's called that; I'm sure there's some pretty basic research I could do on the subject, but I'm content to think that the true story is lost to the ravages of time. A Dutch angle is tilting the camera pretty drastically so that everything seems off-kilter. This can provide various effects, depending on the context of the scene.

1) If things are getting suspenseful and/or confusing, a tilted viewpoint can make the viewer feel off-balance or lost. Or if the character is drunk or wavering in and out of consciousness, it can help the viewer share the feeling of topsy-turvy. One example might be Orson Welles' 'The Third Man'

2) If a character is warped or maniacal, capturing them in a tilted view could contribute to their off-kilter worldview. Probably the most famous example of this is the 60s TV show "Batman" which had its villains commonly filmed at canted angles, since most of Batman's rogues are insane.

3) Diagonals will always be more 'action-y' than vertical or horizontal lines. Viewing an action scene with a Dutch angle can contribute to its dynamism. For this example, I'm using the drawing I'm working on right now, with Han Solo and Princess Leia shooting their blasters on the ramp of the Millenium Falcon.

What's important to note is that an artist should never rely solely on the Dutch angle to make an image interesting. The characters, scenery, and context of the scene itself should be interesting in and of itself, and communicate the mood that the artist wants. The Dutch angle should merely heighten that said mood.

Who Wears Plain Clothes Anyway???

This is a much more general topic than the post regarding patterns following fabric folds. Here, I'm going to talk about just putting patterns on peoples' clothes. I'm not going to attempt to claim what is in style and what isn't, mostly because I've been uncool for most of my life. But look around you at what people wear. Many people have patterns, logos, and textures on their clothes (of course, as I write this, my roommate sits across from me, wearing a plain white t-shirt).

Al Williamson is another favorite artist of mine. I've been looking at a lot of his Flash Gordon work recently, but one of my favorite panels he's ever done is this one from "Secret Agent X-9." Part of it is the framing and poses. But I always come back to this as a great example of

throwing in some texture on some clothing can help an image so much. Think of it this way: in most comic book artwork, you have stark white areas, and stark black areas. Most of the time, you don't have any grey tones. But one way an artist can sneak around that is by creating different textures. It's kind of an "indy" thing to throw in lots of textures, but a mainstream comic can retain its style by just adding in one or two textures--probably on the most important elements of the image.

I also shamelessly note that there's really no way Williamson could have made these textures follow the contours of the clothing the characters. Anyway, my panels owe their inking to Angela Falvey, who gracefully took on the task of putting up with my desire to have textures.

Her deviant art site is www.kuroko.deviantart.com

Everything I Needed to Know about Clothing Folds...

Out of the infinite things I could have learned from the European comic artist Guarnido, I pick clothing folds for this entry. Just to let you know the level of awesomeness I hold his artwork in: a fellow artist and I talk about Guarnido's comic Blacksad in pretty much every conversation we have. The guy's an artistic genius; I highly recommend everyone to read the Blacksad books. Artists should study his work not just for clothing folds, but character design, expressions, and action choreography.

Anyway, clothing folds are something I really enjoy drawing. I've been told that maybe I focus too much on them, but I'm okay with that for now. The great thing about well-placed clothing folds is that in action or in an important gesture, they can help lead the eye, or simply emphasize an arm or leg's direction. Think of it this way, it's a bunch of completely necessary lines an artist can put on a figure that can point exactly where the artist wants the audience to look. In the case of this panel, I took into account that I wanted to draw attention to the hand, and also the fact that drapery must obey the law of gravity. Had the gesture been more forceful, the folds would have been straighter and more direct (like in the Blacksad panel). But since it's a sweeping gesture, there is more of a curve to everything about the figure.

Fun with Shapes

Any image can be simplified down to basic lines and shapes. The way these shapes work together often makes or breaks an image's quality. There are tons of books written on this very subject, and many fine artists of the 20th century experimented with how much reduction one could do to an image before the shapes became unrecognizable of what they represented. Suffice to say for this entry, though, that an artist must always at some point assess the composition in regards to basic shapes.

Unfortunately, I did this a little late in the process of making this cover for my upcoming comic. I made the rough sketch of the cover, scanned it, printed it off, and started drawing. It was then that I realized that the image wasn't interesting at all. I sketched it a few more times in my sketchbook, liked what I was getting, drew it, and repeated this process again because I like to second-guess myself. The story has a happy ending, though, because the cover was eventually finished.

The initial problem I had with the cover was that the bodies seemed stiff. If you remember what I said about lines of action a while back, you'll see it too. Both characters' backs were straight, and since the whole composition centers on them, the image suffers. Giving the characters more curve to their poses forced the rest of the image to follow suit. The curved lines and shapes were far more interesting than the blocky composition. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a time and place for forceful, straight, direct lines and shapes: they can also provide energy and force to an image. I'm pretty sure that this cover wasn't that time or place, though.

I took these sketches through photoshop to block out what I'm talking about, so you might get a better idea of what was going through my head when I was drawing these designs. It was a quick digital overlay, but you get the idea.

Yea! Field Trip!

Most towns of decent size have a museum of some sort. If you don't live in a town that does, then you probably relatively close to one that does. So, don't tell me that you can't visit a museum. I don't care if it's not the kind of museum you're interested in. Go to it. Bring your sketchbook. Sit down in front of something--anything--and draw it.

Across the ages, artists have always frequented museums and art galleries to pull influence from other artists. When I was in the Louvre, sitting down for a few hours and drawing a statue made me feel a part of the greater collective of artists over time. No matter what your medium, style, or skill level, every artist is the same when they set up their sketchbook in front of a museum exhibit: they become a student.

I went to the Ella Sharp Museum out in Jackson, MI. The initial pull was the comic art exhibit, but I was also interested in its exhibit on women's fashion of the Civil War era, and its permanent collection of local historical items. I took tons of pictures of everything, of course (you never know when I'll need to draw a woman from 1860, a WWI officer's uniform, or a surveyor's compass!). But I decided to sketch a few things in its permanent collection. A good learning experience.

People-watching

"People-watching" is something that most people like to do. When you're bored, waiting in line, sitting in the mall, or in my case, waiting at the bus stop for a bus that never comes, it's easy to start paying attention to the trivial mannerisms, conversations, and randomness of humanity. To put it in perspective, at some point in your life, someone has done this to you.

For an artist, humanity is like a buffet. Character and story ideas are absolutely littering the streets. A good artist makes a habit of people-watching because they know that there is much to be learned from the way a person behaves naturally--when they don't think someone is watching. This isn't just good for story and character ideas, but also simple and subtle things people do when they walk, sit, talk, etc.

It was a little chilly when I was sketching these passers-by, and now that I look at this sketch, I can only hope that you can see the details I was trying to capture. The two that I learned the most from were the first and third (beginning on the left) figures. The first girl I saw pass by was crossing her arms in an attempt to stay warm; I wonder if that's connected to the fact that she was wearing a skirt! The third person was actually in a group, and as he passed by, I realized that I've seen tons of guys walk just like this: chest out, chin up, hands in the pockets, back straight. It's kind of a "I-spend-my-weekend-nights-at-the-club" way of walking, if you ask me.

When creating characters, capturing details like these are massively important for creating believability. Think of the people you know best. You can instantly think of how they walk, sit, explain, listen, etc. What's more important is this: think of the people you love and care about. Isn't it the little details about their personality that many times you love and hate the most? It's those seemingly unimportant details that define characters.

Seriously Peoples, Seriously

This is possibly one of my biggest pet peeves about many artists today. I'm sorry I couldn't find a better scan of this page (by Jim Lee and Scott Williams, from a Batman comic), but look closely at the guy in the foreground of the last panel. Look at his jacket. Does it seem at all strange to you that the pattern on his jacket is perfectly, geometrically correct? Do you think it's a little odd that the pattern doesn't move and bend with the folds and curvature of his sleeve, you know, like it would in real life (think about it, if the lines are moving downward at his shoulder, wouldn't they bend and come toward you since his arm is bent and the hand is pointed toward you)? Isn't it blatantly clear to you (now that I point it out) that the artist(s) just drew that pattern right over the area of the jacket, without regard--or maybe even blatant disregard--to form or anatomy?

Okay, I'll calm down. My annoyance roots from when I saw this illustration by one of the coolest artists of the 20th century. JC Leyendecker was one of the primary cover artists for Saturday Evening Post (along with, of course, Norman Rockwell). He also had some amazing advertisements for Arrow Shirts and Collars, one of the classiest clothing lines of the time. The reason why I love this picture so much is because of the patterns on the men's jackets and the center man's hat. Those patterns behave with the curvature of the fabric, and it makes the image completely authentic. This is an incredibly minor detail, and an artist has to go way out of their way to do it (and really have to bend their mind around time and space to figure it out, sometimes). But when you compare this illustration to the one in the comic panel above, which one strikes you as more believable?

I'll never claim to be as awesome as Leyendecker. And I'm not too certain that many comic artists could either. But even if the pattern you put on an article of clothing isn't entirely correct, I'd rather that than a digital overlay that is painfully obvious.

If you're curious about my drawing, be sure to check in on my friend's webcomic www.fizzlebit.com for when the finished art is put up.

Yo Joe!

I'm not sure where I first got this idea, but I'm 90% sure that I didn't think of it completely on my own. Artists use reference all the time. I'm not certain that most people realize just how much reference the average artist uses. Photos, live models, books, drawing on location, the internet, books, miniature mannequins, and, oh yeah, books (seriously, you can tell a lot about an artist by their bookshelf).

Anyway, one of the cheapest ways I've ever solved the problem of figuring out how to stage a scene is by putting my action figures to good use. While it might look a little ridiculous--in fact I'm sure it does--setting up a few posable action figures in relatively the blocking I want saves me a lot of headaches, and in some cases saves the drawing.

In this panel, the goal was to have a guy cut in on a dance, with the girl looking happy and the other guy looking angry. This is kind of a complex panel, since three people are going in different directions, and each one's facial expression is important. So, I took Stormshadow, Cover Girl, and Luke Skywalker and put them in the staging I knew would be required. Then I grabbed my digital camera and started taking some pictures from different angles. When I started doing this, I immediately noticed that what I originally had in mind wasn't going to work. Thus, if I hadn't done this, the panel wouldn't have been very successful. You can view the finished page on my Deviant Art page (link on the right). Poor Luke, in every scenario, he gets pushed away...

Express Your Feelings!

The human face has something around fifty muscles in it. Most of these muscles in some way contribute to the way people communicate with each other. I'm not talking about speaking, though (though it is a big part of communication). I'm talking about facial expressions. Scott McCloud has a very nice chapter on the subject in his book "Making Comics." I could seriously talk for hours about this, but since I can't talk about everything, I'll cover the main stuff.

Facial expressions communicate about a thousand times more to the audience than most words can. It's one thing to say how you feel, but it's another to look it (It just makes me angry when people say how they feel). What's more, is that a person can be feeling one way, and say something that is an attempt to hide or disregard their feelings. The point is this: I can say I'm happy, but you're more likely to believe it if I'm smiling, laughing, hugging everyone I meet, or dancing in the street. Comics don't have the luxury of sound, so everything must be communicated visually. With that, some artists have taken a creative license to exaggerate emotions, or use symbology (a lightbulb above the head, smoke blowing out of ears, etc). But an artist has to remember that there is also subtle expressions. I'm at one level of happiness if I find a five dollar bill on the street, but I'm at another if a girl agrees to go out on a date with me.

Facial expressions (and therefore body language), are one of the most important things for an artist to study. Look at your friends and family and note the way they express themselves. Do people display annoyance differently? Who smiles with their teeth and who doesn't? Are some people more reserved in their emotions, and are others the type that wear their emotions on their sleeve? How does that connect to their age, profession, or the context of the scene?

Comin' Atcha

My favorite artist of all time has to be Jose Louis Garcia-Lopez. He's just awesome. I had so much trouble figuring out which picture to use as the example of his work, because just about everything he does is amazing. The only reason I chose this picture of Superboy is because it's a very similar pose. My goal is to have all of his work someday. Anyway, as a comic artist myself, I try to pull ideas from him. One of his most characteristic traits is how he has figures behave in perspective. What this means is that characters on the 2-dimensional page look as if they are in 3-d environments. Theoretically, most any good artist does this, but Garcia Lopez does it in sometimes very extreme, and other times very subtle ways (other artists to look at would be Jack Kirby and Neal Adams).

I just did a page yesterday, and this panel is very much in this style. In this case, the hand that breaks the panel walls helps lead the eye into the next panel (to see the context, you'll just have to buy the comic!). Generally, though, having figures whose hands or feet are coming at the reader pull the reader into the image. It's like characters are literally popping off the page.

Man in Motion

I came across this Dennis the Menace strip today, and was happy to find that it was very similar to a sketch I did just the other night. Though usually suited for the process of animation, it's important for any artist to have a solid understanding of how a motion is executed, step by step. In my case, I was trying to draw the final dip in a waltz, but I couldn't figure out how exactly the dancers got into that position. So, I backed up the video and drew them as they got there. Preston Blair, in his book Cartoon Animation, goes into great detail about the stages in lots of different motions (walking, running, sneaking, jumping, etc.).

For comics, a study like this can give characters' movements much more credibility, even if they are just static images. As I've said before, there is a strong difference between someone posing as if they are running, and a still image of someone running.

The Ways We Sit

There are a surprising number of things that go into how a person sits down. I'm not talking about the muscle movement--that's a whole other post. What I'm talking about is the fact that hardly anyone sits with their back straight, eyes forward, hands folded in their lap, feet facing forward, with a pleasant expression on their face. I say "hardly" because I just drew someone who did exactly that, which brought this detail to my attention.

If a person is relaxed, they will sit differently than a person who is laughing. When a person is listening, their head might be forward a little. Lots of people talk with their hands, so if they are explaining something, that could have an effect. Lots of people slouch or shove their shoulders forward. Guys cross their legs one way, and girls cross them another. I've even heard that people will sometimes cross their legs towards the person they are attracted to, but I'm not sure how true that is. The point is this: all the different attitudes, personalities, emotions, physical dispositions, and tones of a scene determine how a person sits. I raided my photo reference library for a few examples of this: natural and posed.

Gestures

"An imaginary line extending through the main action of the figure is the 'line of action.' Plan your figure and its details to accentuate this line. By doing so, you will strengthen the dramatic effect. The first thing to draw when constructing a figure is the line of action."--Preston Blair Cartoon Animation

What Blair means by this is that a figure in action should be reduced to one or two lines, and those lines determine everything about that figure. The reason behind this is that an artist can do very broad, sweeping lines in this first step, and the energy in those quick lines can stay in a drawing as it develops.

Right now, I'm working on a comic that has a lot of people swing dancing in it. This sketchbook page was from watching a few videos online. When drawing these, I also kept in mind the things I talked about in the very first post. I highlighted where the lines of action were in these sketches. At this point in the drawings, I'm not concerned with anatomy, costume, expression, or anything else other than the energy in the poses. Swing dancing is full of energy, and if I want to capture that onto a static image, it needs to begin with that as the central focus.