This is a page from the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell. Overall this comic has better art than many of the webcomics I’ve seen, and pages like this one is where the artist adds even more detail. But what I like best about it is how the character’s hair is used to make up the comic’s panels. It’s quite creative, and I haven’t seen it used before.
I like the soft shading on the girl’s face, and the kind of smudgy grey coloring in the picture and the way it contrasts with the hair, which is straighter and has much brighter coloring. In terms of techniques used in this picture, it seems to be the smudge tool to merge the grey and black in the background, and the pen tool in Photoshop to add detail to the hair. The detail on the gem in the upper left hand corner of the picture is rather impressive, and seems to have the most realistic look of anything else in the comic page.
I found this comic while on T.V. Troupes and Idioms.com, and managed to navigate to a link that brought me to Gunnerkrigg Court.
I agree with you in that it is quite interesting how Siddell used her hair to make the panels for this comic. It definitely adds a fluidity to the piece which makes it a lot easier for the eye to read. Unlike in other comics where you just go from one panel to the next with no transition, this smooth transition really works. The fact that he decided to use minimal color also works in that the focus is just on the main character and key elements in the panels.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good solution for breaking up the panels of a comic strip. The red hair and the black shadows contrast very well, and I like how this setup avoids any potentially distracting background elements. I wonder if the artist was inspired by this painting by Edvard Munch (who did The Scream) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6c/Munch_vampire.jpg
ReplyDelete