08 July 2010

IV7

Reminder: click to vote for Malaak and see the new incentive.
Missed a few pages? Go to vol. 4 - all pages.


If you wonder about the fireworks, then you're not familiar with Beirut, LOL. And I type this during the World Cup, which demonstrates like nothing else and for a month nonstop, how crazy the locals are about things that go boom. As for the old VW vans, I saw them a while ago in some war photos and they stuck with me. Even in the midst of rubble and half-consumed by fire, they keep on looking absurdly cheerful. They fit the Brigade, whose every component is patched together of whatever can be found – men, uniform, equipment and vehicles.

The composition of this page gave me an enormous headache, as I simultaneously wanted Malaak's figure to dominate it and needed to fit the following three frames in, that could not be reduced to a single row. So there was a lot of moving things around in my photoshop file before reaching a satisfactory arrangement. This happens even when I'm sure of the page layout, so in order to stay flexible, I apply a habit picked up in my animation days: I work in layers. Backgrounds are drawn separately from characters, and groups of characters like the procession above are similarly deconstructed:



This saves me a lot of tearing hair out and redrawing, when I have to revise my layout decisions!

4 comments:

Kirsty said...

That's a lovely pic of Malaak and the sleepy children. I like the way she's not just a dramatic superhero that goes in all guns blazing, but she does small, less glamorous things to help too. She's very human (only not, of course :-) )

Janix Moon said...

haha when I saw malaak holding a sleeping child and the fireworks it made me think of all the families out here in the U.S. watching 4th of July fireworks and staying up late with sleeping children in their arms. Is it a coincidence? Long live freedom and those willing to protect it! (I agree with Kirsty I think its cool that malaak is not above helping out in small ways) She's awesome!

Joumana said...

Kirsty, thanks! I like when people notice that, she's a far cry from those (*cough*male-written*cough*) superheroes who fight criminals without a care for how much private property they destroy in the process. In any realistic society that would make them pretty unpopular!

Janix, it was a coincidence as I planned that page long before and didn't particularly notice I was posting it on the US' independance day :) I was mostly reminiscing what it was like.

Kofi Walker said...

I just saw this image and love it. i hope you don't mind me using it in a blog or on facebook... it depicts how i am feeling at this moment...! I Like it...

Kofi