Keep on truckin'

[HB Lovecraft]

Here's a page I did. What do you think ?

[Orphangrinder]

Pretty good-looking page. Great use of black, and nice inking.

My major criticism is the fact that he's suddenly driving in the other direction in the last panel. Unless he actually turned around, he should still be driving toward page-right. If he DID turn around, you've gotta show it.

[vrblknch]

Nice page. I like the baddie's look/angle. You've been called on the 180 rule already, the positives outweigh the negatives but I can give you my quick observations. The clouds almost got away from the second panel, and are THIS close to being distracting. Not sure if anyone off the street could tell this is a truck cabin. Maybe a panel with one of those laying down curvy lady silhouette mudflaps or a panel with a MACK grill or something would help establish we have a truck on a two lane. The baddie shot sets up the scene but the setting is still vague without the dreaded long shot. Last but not least, it looks like you drew the cabin panels twice, meaning you didn't use software to duplicate the interior, when it was almost identical. All the big dogs do that. I used to think it was cheating, but instead now my eye is drawn to the differences between panels 3 and 4. Great pencils and inks.

[HB Lovecraft]

Great input: @ orphangrinder: Thanks. The "180 rule" is a great guideline to go by. It is broken every day by great artists all over the world, because sometimes there's no other way to make a shot work. I feel like it's become a dogmatic rule that supersedes other element's of storytelling.

@ Kinch: Thanks. The black, oily smoke read as clouds, and I guess I failed there. The character is wearing a gas mask.... To be honest, I think you're reading way too much into this page. I didn't say this was the FIRST page, it's just A page. You're right about the duplicate panels, but I drew them twice, via lightbox. Duplicating them in Photoshop makes for an original page with a hole in it....

[Orphangrinder]

Great input: @ orphangrinder: Thanks. The "180 rule" is a great guideline to go by. It is broken every day by great artists all over the world, because sometimes there's no other way to make a shot work. I feel like it's become a dogmatic rule that supersedes other element's of storytelling.

Are you writing this because you feel like I mentioned it because it's a dogmatic rule, and that there isn't really a problem? Why did you feel that you needed to break the rule here?

[HB Lovecraft]

I needed to show a few things: 1) a cb radio in the seat, 2)the driver's furious expression. My initial way to do this was to place the camera on the seat, behind the cb, making it very large in the foreground. To me, this lacked the intensity of expression I wanted to inject into the character. Also, the mounted laptop computer would obscure most of his figure anyway, making a large rectangle appear in the composition that would be more jarring than breaking "the 180 rule". 3)I could have done a straight-on shot, from the front, showing both the cb in the seat, and the furious driver. I feel like that straight on shot's are flat and overused. Now, you may be right, and I see your point. I don't want to seem defensive.