One week ago, at the House of Illustration in London, I was attending a masterclass in character and composition with the very fabulous Alexis Deacon. To my surprise, it was all done using collage: cutting out shapes, arranging and re-arranging them. Playing with paper was my most fun thing as a little kid, yet I've never tried collage before, and here we found that simply pushing the pieces of a snowman shape a little off balance can suggest a surprising degree of emotion and intent.
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I think my comic characters tend to stand around in fairly static positions too much of the time so it was a revelation to try out these effects from small changes. Using collage saved drawing and re-drawing and erasing, and also allowed for looser experimenting, letting accidental effects happen.
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Things of course got a little more complicated as we then had to use random cut-out shapes to form new, imagined characters (which I never do, by any sort of method, and found terribly difficult). When I got stuck and admitted I was clueless, Alexis sat down and showed by example; he was kind and helpful and constantly moving round the room to check on everyone's progress with real enthusiasm.
Finally we had to place these characters against a background scene in a way to express something about the newly created character. Alexis showed us some elements of background composition which included:
- leaving empty space for certain effects
- directing characters' gaze toward other characters or something of note, guiding the viewer's eye
- separation or overlapping unification of silhouettes indicating relationships between characters
- visual links by echoing colour or shape, grouping elements through use of shared colour pallette
- reader's viewpoint - from character's eyes, or cinematic overhead distance shot near ending...
These notes are pretty sketchy and some of the concepts probably too subtle for what I do but it was fascinating to learn about how much is going on, probably at a subconscious level, when looking at a beautifully made graphic novel. Alexis was very clear in his explanations, truly an excellent teacher.
And I think I might even try a bit of collage in planning some panels for my graphic novel Two Shillings per Day. Anything that can help add variety to the look of four people cycling along country roads has got to be good!
Finally we had to place these characters against a background scene in a way to express something about the newly created character. Alexis showed us some elements of background composition which included:
- leaving empty space for certain effects
- directing characters' gaze toward other characters or something of note, guiding the viewer's eye
- separation or overlapping unification of silhouettes indicating relationships between characters
- visual links by echoing colour or shape, grouping elements through use of shared colour pallette
- reader's viewpoint - from character's eyes, or cinematic overhead distance shot near ending...
These notes are pretty sketchy and some of the concepts probably too subtle for what I do but it was fascinating to learn about how much is going on, probably at a subconscious level, when looking at a beautifully made graphic novel. Alexis was very clear in his explanations, truly an excellent teacher.
And I think I might even try a bit of collage in planning some panels for my graphic novel Two Shillings per Day. Anything that can help add variety to the look of four people cycling along country roads has got to be good!
