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Saturday, June 2, 2007

Some sketches for the next "Crogan" book

Well, I'm back into the swing of things!

I mailed off my Nickelodeon Magazine pitch, and was very pleased with how it turned out. Hopefully I'll hear something in the not-too-distant future.

I did the pencils for the next page and a half of Crogan's Vengeance, and man alive, have they been tricky. I've got a scene in which the main character, "Catfoot" Crogan, has to go from the foremast crow's nest to the poop deck at the back of the ship via some sort of swashbuckly acrobatic feat. This is easier envisioned than executed, especially when on takes into account the way the actual rigging works and how sails would get in the way. I think that I've got a better handle on it, but it's still tricky. On the other hand, I'm getting more and more familiar with the layout of the ship. I decided on its type because I wanted a variety of levels for staging purposes, but those same levels are making the logistics of various action scenes somewhat tricky. It's not a huge ship, and there isn't a ton of space for people to move around on.

While I was waiting for classes to end (I wasn't going to get started on Vengeance again until they finished) I did some preliminary character sketches for the NEXT Crogan book. Justin Wagner correctly pointed out that the Captain's shoulder poltroons look like pizzas.





I also did a sort of test sketch to see whether or not clarity would be an issue were I to depict the navy-blue legionnaire coats as being black. I think that it'll work. The chest straps help to define the difference between the arms and the chest, and that was my main concern.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

One of these days I'd love to collab on an album design or something. You are ubertalented, my friend.

Chris Schweizer said...

Thanks, Derick. If you guys have anything coming up I'd be happy to do an illustration or something along those lines, just give me a shout.