Thursday, January 2, 2014

REX Day Four

More color/B&W comparisons. Not a great deal of tone work on the B&W version this time. 

The Anti-Terry Brigade over in the comments section on Comics Kingdom are all wigging out over the close-up of June in the third panel -- hating how she looks, of course, and calling for my head. Well, surprise folks -- I'm not really happy with that one, either. 

It's my first week -- I'm still finding my footing here. The characters don't quite look how I want them to yet. I'm trying to find a balance between Graham's version and something that suits my drawing style -- and June has been the most difficult of the bunch to get a handle on. I'd have loved to have reworked this over and over until it was dead on --but with newspaper strip deadlines being what they are, sometimes you just have to move on to the next one. 

Rex, I'm basing off of Graham's design -- with some of the look from the  Bradley/Edgington days thrown in. Sarah, I'm reworking a bit. With two preschoolers in the home, I'm able to observe kids a lot, and that's coming in very handy when drawing that "amazing little girl."

I know I've gotten a lot of great response on facebook and here on my blog. There have even been a few positive comments on Comics Kingdom.  The trolls who post nasty stuff there aren't really fans of the strip -- just folks who get their jollies posting nasty stuff. Real Rex fans will, I hope, give me a few weeks to iron out the kinks and hit my stride. I honestly do enjoy drawing this feature-- and am sincere about making it the best it can be -- I trust they'll see that eventually. In the meantime, I'll duck when the brickbats are thrown.



3 comments:

Jim Keefe said...

I use to work with John Celardo (Tarzan, Buz Sawyer) when I was on staff with King Features. When I first started Flash Gordon I told him I was having trouble with the look of the strip (Raymond looms large). He gave me the sage response that it takes about a year to really get up to speed when taking over the drawing duties of a comic strip. With Sally Forth I had a couple years under Craig MacIntosh before the reigns were handed over and I still feel like the newbie.

Kaz Mayeda said...

Your candor is refreshing. Looking great to me.

Anonymous said...

I like that with your artwork, Kelly looks like a real teenager. In some R. Morgan strips before, she looked like a weird Mark-Trailian-clipart-combination.