Punkat-13 - Run For The Shadows In These Golden Years

Comic practice-Rough Drafts 1/3!

I spent my last week of 2022 and first month of 2023 starting my resolution of improving my comic art. I knew I wanted to finish it within January after Henson Co put out their cute “January is for Jareth” thing, and I was like “oh heck yes it is!”

One of the biggest areas I feel I am lacking in is composition/layout, dynamic poses, and pacing. I know the best way to improve on these areas is to keep working on them, and that is best achieved by drawing comics! In order to save myself from burnout, I decided to use a script I could recite from start to finish (songs included!), and therefore Labyrinth was the best choice. This scene in particular was fun to choose because of the fun variance in lighting, creating a great way to practice my values and contrast too!

What really interested me at the end of this was that you can see where I really get into the groove around pg 6 or so. Lines are more confident and the art cleans up a lot. It all still has a way to go before I would count it “print ready” though. The next step would be to go back over these pages and clean the lines up even further, fix anatomy or pose issues (plenty of those in the first couple of pages) and start setting up tones to make more cohesive scenes. By the end of the next step, it’ll be more or less “print ready” in black and white.Critique is more than welcome for these! I’m trying to improve!! One major thing that I can already see bugging me is jareth’s hair changing volume from page to page and definitely work needed on Sarah’s face…like…everywhere. I’m also looking to improve my speech bubbles here. I feel like I’m close, and I like what I did with the different styles for Hoggle, Jareth, and Sarah, but I feel like it’s still not totally “there”. That all being said, I’m pretty proud of myself for cranking out 21~ pages in around a month and around working 40-60 hours a week. I look forward to cleaning these up and making them look even better for my portfolio. I mean, the dream is to do this for a living, and even better if it’s working for Henson Co. I have my work cut out for me! 😄

David Bowie, March 5th, 1987, © Joel Robine/Philippe Auliac

David Bowie, Julian Schnabel and Iman Abdulmajid at a reception for the release of Schnabels’ album, “Every Silver Lining Has A Cloud”, published by Island Records, on May 24th 1995 in New York City

© Michael Ochs | Source

David Bowie at the Phoenix Festival, July 20th, 1997. 📸: Pat Pope

Unused images from the Black Tie White Noise cover photoshoot, 1992

© Nick Knight | Source

“Unused images created by Nick Knight for David Bowie's 1993 album, Black Tie White Noise. The cover concept focused on a simple portrait of Bowie’s face mirrored down the middle - the front cover would be the two right hand sides and the back the two left hand sides. The result would be a slightly strange, disturbing vision that left the viewer feeling that something was not quite right. The concept was inspired by Bowie's distinct eyes, which had different sized pupils due to anisocoria, the result of a teenage tussle. The original shot, alongside the front cover option and the back cover option are shown here. In the end, a different image of Bowie by Knight, which features the close crop of the singer's face, slightly tilted, was selected.” 

David Bowie, New York 1997

© Ian Davies | Source

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David Bowie and Alan Edwards, 1995 | Source