Sequencial Panels.

[chargedgraphite]

There seems to be a lot of chatter about how people don't do regular sequencial work and some are even affraid of it. Afterall, sequencial work is the most important side of the comics process, even more so than proper anatomy in some cases.

Let's see your thoughts on the process and hopefully our fearless leader will throw in an enlightening view of how he structures his amazing work. Think you can squeeze us enough time in for a comment on this one, Mark?

[chargedgraphite]

I found this link that Mark posted back in 2003 on deviant art on the subject of backgrounds...very interesting and the insight plays an important role in the topic.

diablo2003.deviantart.com/art/Fun-with-Backgrounds-23199612

Check it out and then, incorporate it into your sequencial drawing ability by adding the element of mastering motion within the background you create, to manage your characters as if they are truly within a 3D environment.

I use a common method of drawing the rooms, buildings, landscapes, etc...all in a tearsheet format that most of you may know as a technique used for smoothing out the feel for a character by sketching them in multiple poses, expressions and the like.

You can do the same thing with a room or landscape, to put your characters into a more realistic sequencial progression. Draw an office, for example, as a series of 3D cubes at different angles. Flesh them out just as you would a character sketch and practice placing your characters in different areas of the room. In the smaller, floor plan designs, you will be able to then see where the characters would be for fleshing out different style closeups, mid-level and long shots without much of an issue.

This exercise will allow you to recognize the distance from the character in that great closeup shot to the back wall of the office, in your background and will show you the scale/depth to post the items around the room for a far more rich effect in your samples.

The same principle can be applied for landscapes. It is simply like laying the cube over a portion of the earth or whatever planetary environment you are using and cutting it out for your own use. The entire environment will be contained within that cube and can be directed to any angle you require to get your best shot and it look as deep and lively as possible.

Once you practice this for a while, you will be able to take any angle and layout of that environment for your project and repeat the process for an entire alien planet. More importantly, you will be able to take your required shot from any script, at any angle and get the shot positioned accordingly.

I highly recommend getting tracing paper or a light box from your local craft shop. The reason is that you can maintain the original map you generate for your project and use it over again if you place the characters in an overlay rather than on the actual original to gain placement.

Think about a talk scene between Logan and Prof. X, in his office. Draw the office in this method and add on the extra detail shots of drawing each wall around the room, fully fleshed out, as an animator would for a cartoon or movie set. Then, take your desired shot, add your view points and flesh everything in, from whatever angle you want.

Take this into your arsenal for creating a scene that will make even the lightest talk scene pop. This simply covers perspective in storytelling/sequencials. Keep in mind though that this is only one of many pieces to the puzzle of sequencials. You have to pay attention for techniques for pacing, dialog content/character placement in a panel, use of panel framing/scaling and proper use of panel breaks. If you like this tutorial and would like me to keep posting and possibly get some samples up here, let me know. Otherwise, you guys start throwing your tips and techniques into this mix too.

Hope this helps some of you in your quest for comicdom.