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techniques and secrets of Arsenic Lullaby page composition as a whole
okay so, up to this point i've been showing page layout based on timing and eye movement. Now, here is a page that was laid out with a slightly more standard art composition in mind. In this page i was looking at the page as a whole, and combining the individual panels using standard artistic composition rather than timing and eye movement. let's look at it with a few highlighted areas.
This
page is all about mood and the creepiness of it. since we have
already gone over "implied lines" we can plainly see that the
first panel has a series of implied triangles. just like different
colors produce different feelings, different shapes produce different
feelings- triangles for example imply security, permanence, stability.
the sleeping woman is surrounded by triangles- she is in a secure
setting, HOWEVER we also learned that the eye is drawn to doors and
windows so the security is contrasted by our eyes being drawn to the
open window with joe and merl lying in wait....that's the setting of the
mood. BUT this camera shot also helps set the mood. it is a
standard birds eye view where we are being drawn down into the action,
so just as Joe and Merl are creeping in...so too does the reader feel
like an onlooker, peeping tom. and rather than have the sleeping
woman framed smack dab in the middle of the composition, she is off the
the lower right. this...if that were all there was to the
composition...would make for a crappy panel because your eye would
travel right off the page as it went from middle left (joe and merl) to
lower right (following down the woman's body to her head).
However...large black areas stop your eye...they create subliminal
barriers (I can't remember if i mentioned that or not...but now i
have...black = stop) so the whole panel is blocked off by blacks - the
night horizon in the window, the cabinet and dresser sides and the black
headboard rails. these along with the triangles keep the eye
bouncing around and stretching out the time spent in the panel.
also i should add that the word balloons have no tails for a reason.
tails on word balloons are an often forgotten element. they lead
the eye as sure as the most imposing lines in a composition. so,
to keep from disrupting the composition and to imply the most time
possible...the word balloons have no tails...they simply exist on the
page...whispers in the night. the second half of this page is COMPLETELY different from the top
panel in composition, camera angle, and timing. Joe and Merl are outside
of the room, their victim is inside...so having drastic differences
between the panels they are in, and the top panel that the room is
featured in really help create a world on the page. it is as
thought that top panel is a room and the bottom panels are outside.
as thought the sleeping woman panel is still going on while Joe and Merl
spring their evil doings in the lower panel. one other technique in this page that i like and do from time to
time is that the panels in the lower section can really be read from top
to bottom as effectively as from left to right. in fact if you
follow the red lines, the top and bottom panels could very well read
like a flip book. damn i'm good. all false bravado aside, this is one of the best pages i've ever
done, i really caught lighting in a bottle with it. it almost makes me sad that i don't have the time, patience or
tools to do those uneven grey lined areas anymore. the uneven grey
really plays havoc with the eyes and makes the reader uncomfortable.
unfortunately i did those with a technical pen that they discontinued
long long ago. it was a steadler triple zero. man that was a
great pen, i could draw three lines on the head of a pin with that
thing, or write one straight line a block long without ever having it
skip, stutter, blot or snag/spray on the page. it was actually
discontinued before i ever did an issue, i got mine at an estate sale.
i only had one and it got ruined when i was cleaning it one day.
probably a blessing in disguise though, i'd have arthritis and coke
bottle glasses by now if i had it past issue four. but
really...look at the steadiness of my hands on those lines in the top
panel, there must be a thousand lines there just barely kissing each
other. Steady patient hands...that's the stuff dreams are made
of...am i right ladies?...that's right, you know what i'm talking
about...HEY! don't you back away from the computer!! my idle hands are
getting lonely...HEY! COME BACK HERE! >:( . . . feh, bitch. OH YEAH! in a movement of extreme
foreshadowing/insanity...the nightstand has a tiny drawing of a pack of
cigarettes on it...you hard core reader will get the significance of
that. Arsenic Lullaby is FULL of little things like that, for
instance the FIRST appearance or Baron Von Donut was on a bag of donuts
Joe fed to a victim in issue...uhm 10 i think...five issues before he
would make an appearance as a speaking character. in fact my favorite
"you are a dumbass who will never truly understand my genius"
moment is when a reviewer bitched that i kept forgetting to draw the
back of voodoo joe's head. of course if you read Arsenic Lullaby
Omega you know that WAYYYY back in issue no.2 i was already setting
the stage for the end of the series. AND if you get issue ten and cut out all the panels with that
donut bag you can make a flip book out of them and Baron Von Donut
dances.
comments? concerns? myspace.com/douglasarseniclullaby www.arseniclullabies.com
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