Prologue: Page 5
Well, that went sooner than I thought! Still so much to learn about ComicPress and what it considers a “new day”!
This will be the last page until Saturday, so I figured I would share the making of page 5 with you. As all pages do, it starts with a thumbnail sketch, to capture the angle of the shot and the basic visual elements of the page. Before anything is drawn, Rachel and I discussed the area being shown in the page. This is one of many scroll libraries inside the great Spire of Gair, and this one in particular – a well-guarded room at the peak of the Spire – encompasses the most important historical tomes in the land.
The initial thumbnail occasionally winds up being very different from the final page as we iterate on various elements, but in this case, as you can see, the basic layout of this first thumbnail remained near-identical to the final product – the big changes being where the text was positioned about the panels.
After we settled on the thumbnail, Rachel took to work on fleshing out the design of the room. As you can see in the work-in-progress page above, keeping the perspective properly set played a big part in the second panel during this initial phase. However, the hard work was yet to come.
The scrolls! Goodness, the scrolls! Rachel realized early on that to really give the library the proper vibe, it would need to be cluttered. While drawing cluttered libraries is more the purview of Sean Rubin (whose library-drawing skills are told in ballads across the land), Rachel took admirably to the task, cluttering up those shelves and cubbies with a variety of scrolls and books all presented at different angles, as would befit a rounded room.
Once the clutter was added in, it was a few more passes for color and lighting, and adding the appropriate Felis text to the floor.
Starting on Saturday, we actually get to see what’s in those scrolls!
Off to an AWESOME start, didn’t disappoint at all or fail to meet my expectations :D Just gonna go curl up in a corner somewhere though as I’m completely envious of both of your abilities xb Great stuff and can’t wait for more! ^^
Clutter is good, and kudos for taking the time to draw it.
After an awesome look at the architecture of the library, we get an equally awesome look at it’s interior. This is great stuff, really great! Everything about the design – the circular shape, the bookcases, the depression in the floor, the lighting – looks amazing and practical at the same time. I love this place. Kudos for cluttering up the bookcases, Kobb!
Since we’ll be moving on from this scene, I should take the time to speculate a bit about our mystery narrator. From his body shape and the tip of his tail, he very much seems to be an Ermehn, but exactly which one… He (I’m assuming it’s a he) seems to have friendly relations with the library staff, enough for them to let him into the most sacred room in the Spire, which you wouldn’t expect from a member of the most despised and marginalized species in the Four Kingdoms.
There’s also the question of when exactly this prologue takes place. It seems so far to take place after the main story of BTWD, so this would actually serve as a sort of epilogue, (if it does, the conflict at least didn’t devastate the world completely, since the Felis capital is still standing and has a vibrant life). Of course, I could be completely wrong – the only way to find out is to keep reading…