For the last couple of weeks I've been thumbnailing the manuscript for chapter one of Oh Brother. My goal has been to thumbnail a scene everyday, which could be as short as a page or as long as 10 pages. It's been great having a daily goal to meet and I really feel like I've been on top of the project.
As I've been drawing panels and nutting out scenes, I realised that there are lot emotions in the book and I was struggling a little bit to figure out exactly which facial expression was the best to show what the characters were feeling. So I thought I'd make myself emotion guides for each of the main characters (me, my brother and my parents).
These have been super handy. Even if I don't use one of the emotions I've already drawn, it can spark an idea in my mind about what expression I really want to show.
I'm not happy with all of the faces and obvs I didn't really mix it up to much with the angles (and when I did, I didn't nail it) but it was good to draw each of the characters a few more times. I'm now feeling a little more confident with their looks and feel like I've hammered out a few more facial details that were bugging me.
That's it for now - I need to get back to the (literal) drawing board and get going with these thumbnails if I want to reach my goal of finishing them by the end of the month.
Gxx
Following on from my last post about how the design of the characters in my graphic novel, Oh Brother, have changed over the 7-ish years I’ve been working on the book, this post is about my absolute favourite thing: drawing emotions!