Sonic 224 layouts and pencils -Part 2-

Page 06 layout-

Page 06 final pencils-

I’m unhappy with how I did a lot of the special effects in this page. I’m not into the chunky blur on the sword hilt for panel 01, or the less than spectacular effect of Sonic blocking a bunch of ice needles in panel 04. I should have done much, much better.

What I am happy with is the sense of movement throughout the entire page. I feel like I captured a very natural progression of the characters bouncing from one panel to the next.

You’ll notice if you’ve got a copy of 224 anywhere nearby that you can see Naugus’s left arm in panel 05 in my pencils but the panel is cropped in the actual issue. I’m assuming this is a choice made by Terry Austin, the inker.  I’ve been noticing this more and more as I compare pencils to inks and I think this can be a good choice on his part to cap a lot of the bleeds I draw and focus the action as well as balance the page. As much as I enjoy the full pose I’ve drawn here for Naugus I really like that white space underneath the full bleed panel you find in the actual comic. I really, really like the choice to drop the right panel border on panel 01 up at the top. Looking in the actual comic you’ve got just that little sliver of Naugus and I love it! Makes me think of the stylish little panels Bill Watterson would do for Calvin and Hobbes.

Page 07-

Ah, okay here we go. I was surprised to find how much I was liking my art in the first five pages of 224 when my memories of my work in the issue were less than favorable, but here’s a page I’m not too keen on. Mainly its all in Panel 02. Many problems.

I do like Naugus’s flailing backward while shooting fire in panel 04, thats a good pose and a fun little piece of character reaction.

I also really enjoyed the idea of Elias coming in and totally whaling for a moment. I don’t know much about him aside from he is Sally’s brother and the current King, but man it would be cool if that guy did more stuff like this! The guy has clearly got some skill. And he’s a squirrel right? He’s got an awfully fox-like tail for a squirrel. You can see in the layouts I drew him with a standard cartoon squirrel tail and I may have briefly considered drawing the tail different for the final pencils. Not like the layouts though as that is standard cartooning and too literal, not very Sonic like. I would go with a tail like Ray’s from Sonic Arcade if I was allowed. With his current tail you could argue the point that Elias is a squirrel-chipmunk and that perhaps the cross breeding has altered aspects of his tail, but that seems uselessly complicated to me.

Oh, my absolute favorite thing about page 07 is Naugus’s face in the last panel in the layouts. I love that frown.

Page 08-

This is my favorite of all the layout pages and my least favorite for the actual pencils. I absolutely love the two little stick versions of Hamlin and Dylan running off to do battle in panel 03. I love all the little stick characters! I also think Hamlin’s expression and drawing in the layout for panel 04 are far superior to the actual drawing I did for the pencils.

Going back to panel 03 though, its important to create compelling and dynamic “camera” angles in comics, especially in Sonic. You also want to make sure the shot you choose is telling the appropriate story. I love the layouts for panel 03 because its very funny to me, but that’s exactly the problem as it should not be funny. The two characters are running off to do battle and hearing something that stops them in their tracks. It should be dramatic or intense. So I rotated our camera a little to get a more interesting view of the situation and hopefully take an originally boring shot into a more exciting one. If you’ve still got your 224 around compare the eyes of Hamlin and Dylan in the pencils to your issue.

Page 09-

Here’s  a couple of nice differences between layouts and pencils. Panel 01 changed completely and panel 02 was reversed.  I think the layout of panel 01 is very exciting and you’ve got a lot intensity with Hamlin’s large figure. I also think the small Sonic off to the side changes the tone of his dialog for the panel to be more humorous than the final result. I think this is overall a cool possibility for the scene but it has a flaw and some missed opportunities that I luckily caught on to and adjusted for the pencils.

If you check your issue of 224 you’ll find that Hamlin speaks first, followed by Penelope, and then Sonic. The order that characters speak in comics is all important and the artist needs to make sure characters are placed to allow for the correct order. In general, you want the first character to speak on the left and move to the right accordingly. My layout mixes the order up and complicates the readers progression by placing Penelope first instead of Hamlin. You can of course get a little creative and place Hamlin’s text below Penelope’s to solve this problem but I gained more opportunities to provide better storytelling for the following panels by shifting my camera in panel 01.

In the layout my view allows for only three characters but when I shift the view behind Sonic in the pencils I’ve suddenly gained room for twice as many characters and their reactions to the argument. Most importantly though I’ve given the reader a clear understanding of where all the characters are currently located so that when we move to panel 02 its immediately understood Rosemary is standing higher than Rotor. This gives her more authority in the panel and maximizes the impact of Rotor’s frustration and weakness. By excluding Uncle Chuck in panel 01 it helps sell the story that he stalks toward Rosemary in panel 03.

I was super happy to get to do some exaggerated expressions in this page. Penelope slamming her hands in panel 01 and especially Rotor’s ‘One Piece’ style exasperation compared to Rosemary’s collected demeanor in panel 02 were a blast. I love stylish and exaggerated storytelling when its appropriate. (And in my personal opinion with something like Sonic the Hedgehog thats almost all the time!)  My personal take on this moment when reading the script was that because Naugus was manipulating emotions we got a lot of characters overreacting and behaving like fools in a fairly serious situation. A perfect opportunity to get a little wild with these characters.

And bam, page 10!-

I went digging through my files and could not find layouts after page 09. I think what happened is I forgot to do layouts for the rest of the comic and I’m lucky that the editor Paul Kaminski trusted me to carry through the rest of the comic without seeing what I intended to do. At this point I was starting to feel very tired and burnout with the 2010 Christmas holiday and the amount of work I was doing. I’m pretty sure this was the first and last time layouts just slipped my mind.

This page was a lot of fun and hard work to do though. When designing this room I did a lot of research for Eggman styled headquarters in past videogames, especially Sonic Adventure. That door for example in panel 02 is lifted straight out of the game. While you’re looking at that door right below it is a second Egg mobile station. That one belongs to Snively, and although you can’t see it, to Eggman’s left is where Lien-Da’s Egg Mobile is. They are both set lower than Eggman so its clear who exactly is in charge here.

Speaking of Snively, I think he is a hideously designed character and can’t stand him. I’m always looking for ways to make him more palatable.

Up next 224 Part 3!