I made a movie with him a few years back.  He was 87 at that time, producing three pictures at once and none of us could keep up with him.  He was alternately tough and charming. He forced me to stay on budget, on schedule and learn the correct way to eat pasta. Once, after meeting with two well known actors, I was telling Dino which one I thought was better suited to play the lead in our film. Dino frowned.  “If you put a gun to my head, and told me I had to choose between them,” he said. “I’d take the bullet.”

I am honored that I had the chance to work with him, and be a small part of his enormous career.

Two news items to report.

First: I’ve started the seventh chapter of Seven Extraordinary Things.  We have reached the crisis point of the story, and the characters I’ve tried to make sympathetic, I’m now putting through misery.  When you think about it, writing is a sadistic practice.

Second: I’m going to Italy for a short vacation.  Florence, to be exact.  But 7XT will continue while I’m away from my studio.

In case anyone is wondering, Ziggy is headed to camp for some well deserved R&R.  It is my sincere hope that the neighborhood won’t be overrun by the forces of darkness in his absence.

A new chapter begins, in which Greg faces the consequences of his choices.

With that in mind I kept my initial drawings uncluttered…

…my first ink lines were clean…

…and unadventurous.  So far so good.

I added blacks to separate foreground from background…

…and thought, “It might be nice to cut some detail into the black areas with an erasure tool”…

…Hmmm.  That’s fun.  Sorta like scratchboard.  Now maybe I’ll add a bit of local texture and some shading on the figures…

…ah, what the hell?  May as well put some shading in the background.

Now I’ve managed to complicate it.  This work flow quickly led me to creating panels like this:

I remember hearing someone say it takes two people to paint a picture: the artist holding the paint brush, and someone standing next to him with a stick to make him stop when the painting was finished.

Featured here are the Famous Artists drawing course, Composing Pictures by Donald Graham, All of Andrew Loomis’ published books, both volumes of Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn to Life, most of George Bridgman’s books, and very old and battered copy of The Art of Animal Drawing by Ken Hultgren, Animal Drawing by Charles Knight, three books by  Jack Hamm, Stephen Peck’s Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist, Anatomy A Complete Guide for Artists by Joseph Sheppard,  An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists by Fritz Schider, Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth, The Vilppu Drawing Manual, The Big Book of Drawing by J.M. Parronmón, Rendering in Pen and Ink by Arthur Guptill and How to Draw Trees by Henry C. Pitz.

Click here to return to the Home Page of this site, where new panels of Seven Extraordinary Things are posted daily.  New readers to my online graphic novel can begin here.

Base characters on people you have firsthand experience with, and then, find that character in yourself. A good example is Alexander McCall Smith, a white Scotsman living in Edinburgh who writes a black woman from Botswana in The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  Because human beings are complex, we can locate others within facets of our own personalities. This isn’t easy. It means empathizing with people whose points of view may differ from ours, perhaps some with whom we wouldn’t want to socialize. And there’s another reason, one that becomes apparent when we describe our stories to others.

Pitching your ideas is a great way to test and develop concepts. However it’s harder to explain that your main character is modeled after Mrs. Studebaker, who taught you in fifth grade and wasn’t afraid of anything, than to say: “Imagine a female Indiana Jones.” When you need to make these kinds of comparisons (and if you pitch to studio executives you might) it is important that you flush “a female Indiana Jones” from mind when you write and draw the character. That’s the time to go back to your fifth grade teacher.

Take inspiration for the physical appearances of your characters from anyone or anything you like, but when you put them into action, when you write their dialogue and draw their poses, they must be based on someone that is real in your mind. Using people you know makes your characters specific. Finding them in yourself makes them honest.

Slum Dog Millionaire

The Accidental Tourist

The Blackboard Jungle

The Grapes of Wrath

It’s not the only way to create a title, but it is a good way.

The concept of unexpected juxtaposition is applicable to many facets of art and literature.  In writing (with words) it often takes the form of a metaphor; a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are implicitly compared without using “like” or “as”.   Some examples are “Time is a thief” and “All the world’s a stage”.  Metaphors can also make effective titles.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

A simile compares unlike objects, but it does use “like” or “as”.  “Blind as a bat”, “run like the wind” (both of these are clichés; don’t used them in your writing).

Unexpected juxtaposition can be used effectively in both designing and developing characters. Take two or more disparate elements and combine them in an unexpected way.

It is a way of developing characters. Not the only way.

It can also be applied to the development of a character’s personality.  Unexpected juxtaposition can result in “quirks” (such as a private investigator that knits in his spare time) or something more deeply rooted in the character’s nature (a concert pianist who is a serial killer or a curmudgeon who writes romance novels).  As with a good metaphor, the objective is not to combine elements that don’t fit together, but that fit together in a surprising, yet ultimately truthful way.

Unexpected juxtaposition is a useful tool in the design and development of characters for your stories, but there are many others.

This past Saturday I was in Santa Barbara, revisiting the town I grew up in.

Sometimes I wonder why I ever moved to Los Angeles…

…Oh yeah. It was to work in the film industry. Hmmmm.

Here’s wishing everyone prosperity, creativity and good relationships in the coming year.