Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Alien Messiah





I'm going to use this as the basis for a demo/lecture in class tomorrow. It was done in the early 80s and I'm going to go over it and point out things that are no nos and would improve the work. Love the tangent of the flying manta ray and the sword for instance.

Added my touch up. Even though I have a lot of stuff I did intellectually that may have "improved " the composition/staging and injected more focus, I like the original better.

I may show it anyway.

7 comments:

Kali Fontecchio said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kali Fontecchio said...

Do you have a lot of talented people in the class this year?

Mr Goodson said...

Same losers. Kidding. I have some really good artists. Straining to get value out of their medium aware teacher.

Love your large size profile shot.

Tom Carroll said...

You're too close to it, E. I like the clarity of the 2nd piece much better ...

Scotty Buncake said...

Hey Ellis! You swarthy minx! I'm gonna throw in my quick two cents on the shot. May I suggest that you move the flying manta rays a bit off the characters feet. In a way it's creating a small tangent by covering up BOTH of this guys feet. He doesn't really feel rooted to the ground because we can't physically see him standing on terra firma. In a small way it almost feels like he's using the two rays as stepping stones.

Also, the Mantaman in the middle is shifted in perspective noticeably to his friend behind him and our hero in front. Maybe line him up more perpendicularly so he doesn't look too tilted?

I know you did this ages ago, but I think with these small changes I might be able to claim it as my own and usurp the glory that should rightfully be yours.

ALSO, the other Slushpile guys really like Zonzen! We want to add it to Slushpile for the premiere. One page a week for 30 some odd weeks. All three stories. And maybe that will give you time to create a new Zonzen after that! Talk to me, we'll need a re-scan of full pages (or send them to me if you already have them). I'll be talking to you more about it. Also, I'll need a new drawing of Zonzen, full figure standing upright to be on the mainpage. It's gonna look like an exclamation point with the button beneath him to click on to get to your page. Nothing too wide or arms stretched outward or anything like that. It'll trespass into somebody else's (like Cork's) exclamation point. The figure itself will need to be colored too. Either you or one of us can do it. Again, I'll talk to you soon about it! It should be very fun and cool. You keep all the rights etc., etc...

Mr Goodson said...

Buncake. I'm all over the Zonzen thing. I'll scan it soon and start the transfer to you. And do the new illo as well.

I'll read your critique on the old piece by going to the Blog. Let the students weigh in as well.

One of the big points about this , there was never a thumbnail. I didn't do thumbnails. If I was working on 11 by 17 paper, that's the size the drawings began as.

Kali Fontecchio said...

Teach them to be human again, Ellis.