Thursday, April 20, 2006

The Show Must Go On...


More pages from "Mad Doctors In Love" as our story continues.

The trouble with old movies is we go to such lengths to restore them that there aren't that many left on DVD that have flicky hairs and scratches all over them. Certainly hardly any in my collection.

Handy little filter in photoshop called "Add Noise" sorted that out, coupled with a layer where I'd draw in the scratches, burn blotches and hairs.

Okay, so circa when our chaps would be watching this movie, granted, this would be possibly the worst cared for can of film in existence, but let us pretend for a moment that the projectionist was more than a little clumsy, prone to drinking on the job perhaps, if for the benefit of telling the difference between a black and white film within a black and white world as we introduce our screen starlet, in a film role, and then cunningly introduce our two doctors, enjoying a night at the movies (for the moment).

Here's thumbnails for pages 6 & 7.
I sketch using animation pencils. The page of sketches shown in an earlier post was a greyscale scan. I don't actually draw using standard HB lead pencils and haven't in over fifteen years (near enough). Have no idea why but thanks to animation, I've become so conditioned to drawing with coloured pencils (notably blue), that I sometimes find it difficult to get into that drawing mindset when using standard lead pencils.

I'll leave that one for the shrinks to figure out.

Whilst on the subject of mindset, the music I listened to whilst drawing these pages consisted of, "Rumbas En Colores" by Lecuona Cuban Boys (who are awesome, don't just take my word for it, it's a scientific fact), "Jungle Drums" by Xavier Cugat and "That Old Black Magic" by Stephane Grappelli and his Quintet.

The scene was inspired by Rita Hayworth in "The Lady from Shanghai" which was incidentaly based on Sherwood King's 1938 novel "If I Die Before I Wake" which was exactly what I was thinking little over a week ago as I lay on a trolley in a corridor waiting for my operation.

Yep, definitely leave that one for the shrinks to figure out!

Mad Doctors In Love is Copyright ©Ian Culbard, 2006.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coloured pencils make less 'definite' marks than HBs. So you feel freer to push those pencils around. That's my theory, anyway.
I like the jarring bottom panel of page seven.

I. N. J. Culbard said...

That makes sense. Coloured pencils also don't smudge, leaving precisely the marks you mean to make.

Jo Bling said...

Me likey longtime! Can't wait to see this finished, Mr Bard. Furthermore, it's terrific to see this come together on the blog. Top production diary.

Bada Bling!

Anonymous said...

you pimped your blog at my store today so here i am to check it out. very cool. love seeing the strip coming along.
and ever so excellent selection of favourite movies.

I. N. J. Culbard said...

Many thanks, Mister Smith. Glad you're enjoying the strip.

Mister Smith here is the guy that ensures that I don't miss out on a single issue of Brubaker's run on Captain America or Daredevil over at The Travelling Man in Nottingham, and recently roped me into Crisis and is doing a pretty good job convincing me my life won't be complete without Civil War too, damn it!

The Travelling Man store was very supportive when "Dark Horse: New Recruits" came out, and even went out of their way to ensure that other stores in the area ordered it in too, for which I'm eternally grateful.