Sunday, April 1, 2012

Still Alive (and about to be here regularly!!)

Okay-
So, starting this quarter I'm officially an MFA student at SCAD in Illustration. I'll get me degree in about 5 years (only one class per quarter while I'm still teaching full time.)

For my first class I'm taking an elective where I'm working on the thumbnails for a graphic novel project that I've been talking about for 6 years (yeah, that one!)

I'll be posting some of the thumbnails, pencils, inks, and tones/letters as I do them.
I'm trying to do 8 pages this quarter so that I can have samples to show to a publisher in France.

Let me know what you think.

The opening scene is a flashback to my youth, playing catch with my older brother.
I'm terrified. I'm not worrying any about consistent faces or characters yet. I'm just trying to get the story down.

Here's the thumbnails to page one:


Feedback/questions are appreciated.


Thanks.


Tom

9 comments:

Kevin Zeigler said...

Looks pretty snazzy so far! Can't wait to see more of it. And to see more regular posts from you!!!

Paulina Ganucheau said...

Awesome! I can't wait to see more. :)

Drew Zucker said...

looks good to me, glad to see you finally getting around to this one.

Sarah Herrin said...

i love it so far! i'm glad you'll be posting here again. looking forward to it!

- sarah herrin

Lindsey Miller said...

This is going to be so amazing, to see your process from the beginning to the end result. :D
I really enjoy the cause and effect action between the 3rd and 4th panels.
Im really looking forward to seeing more :D Im so excited

Tom Lyle said...

Drew-
Yeah. It's about freaking time I got to this.
I had to enroll as a grad student to make myself work on it.
More to come in a few days.

David Balan said...

Cool! Great weight on that throw in panel 3.

The only possibly strange thing is in the transition from panels 1 to 2, it could almost be considered a zoom-in since the characters are in nearly the same place. Maybe have mini-you tilting a bit, looking towards the right of panel (his left)?

That way screen direction isn't murky at all.

CCG Coordinator said...

Congrats on making the leap to get the Masters Tom! You can teach an old dog new tricks :-)

This is coming from the guy you questioned about his age back in 2007 HeroesCon after I attended all the SCAD Sequential art panels I could :-)

Heck, I even talked Shawn Crystal into being the juror/lecturer/workshop leader for the first Comic Art Gallery Show in Lexington!

Will you be at HeroesCon this year? Hope to make it and if you are there I will be sure to catch up with you. Hope to talk more soon.

Kind regards,
J.Gilpin
CCG Coordinator

Dewback13 said...

Figure I would leave my initial post here before jumping ahead to you most recent.

First off, I am liking the design element of the panel layout and black backdrop. I am interested to see if this causes any problems later in the book (with panels that push the extreme of having either a lot of black placement or white space).

The first three panels are pretty straight on. This works for me because I like the cut from pitcher to catcher and back. Very rhythmic.

So when the ball hits the mitt and we have our first shot that doesn't feel straight on, we get the impact and it pulls us in. It also makes the catcher to focus of this page.