Celephais, Page 6
At last, page 6! Celephais is now half finished, and I’m going to try to get back on that once-every-two-weeks schedule. This page actually needs more tone values and spot blacks, but I decided to put it up now as-is and come back to it later to add more depth.
I cut out a bit of dialogue that could have been on this page, but hopefully I didn’t remove anything essential to the story. (I don’t think I did, anyway.) Anyone who’s read my adaptation of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath will recognize a character or two here. I could’ve filled an entire page drawing the first panel. This scene makes me think of Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities,” which obviously depicts locations on the borders of the Dreamlands.
NEXT UPDATE: July 20!
Yes!
The trip on the hot air balloon is my favourite part of this page. I really love the look of that old fellow who’s floating in the air and reading a book.
By the way, how do you do spot blacks? (as in, which tool do you use? Or do you do it digitally?)
I had been doing all my spot blacks with the same ballpoint pens I use for everything, but for this page and some of the previous page, I did them on computer after scanning the outlines. I’ve definitely got to add more blacks to this page. Once I get it on the computer, the temptation is to just add gray tone colors instead of spot blacks, because it’s faster, but I think the spot blacks usually look better.
Yes, please add more luscious blacks! Although, as I noted before, your tonal shading is outstanding. The first panel is so full of life and detail you can almost see it as an animated sequence. More wonderful bits: the ‘stilled’ hourglass, the standard bearing the moebius strip, the character toting the alphabet blocks up the ladder, the ‘double-decker’ howdah, the cat wandering by the pillow vendor, the scythe (the lone ominous note)…again, I can see the Tim Kirk influence.