Activity 43: Image's Blacklight

[Kep!]

Ok crew, here's a new one for you. This time it's a talkie. I believe you'll find this one is more challenging than the typical talking head page... and I'll leave you to find out why. Good luck, have fun, and don't hesitate to ask questions. I'll post the printed version in a week or so.

BLACKLIGHT #1 (IMAGE) Page 10 - Written by Scott Wherle, Art by John Toledo

http://www.kepink.com/activities/Activity43.jpg

PAGE 10 – (6 Panels)

PANEL 1 – Pull back for a two-shot. Lina is sitting up now, facing Tomas. She’s not angry. Almost sad, though.

1 – LINA: That’s the difference between us, Tomas.

2 – LINA: I’m not.

PANEL 2 – Lina standing, looking off the front of the porch.

3 – LINA: When we first got together, we always talked about how we were gonna leave. Get out and see the world. Get married. Do something with our lives.

4 – LINA: It’s been four years, Tomas. Is this as far as we go?

5 – TOMAS: Let’s not start this again.

PANEL 3 – Lina turns back to face Tomas, who is still sitting on the swing. She’s more animated.

6 – LINA: Start what?

7 – LINA: Why am I “starting something” when I want to talk about our future?

8 – TOMAS: We’ve been over this, Lina.

PANEL 4 – On Tomas, who has a very serious look on his face.

9 – TOMAS: I have connections here. Stature. I go somewhere else and I start from scratch.

10 – TOMAS: You think somebody in New York is gonna give me a chance like your papa did? He’s more of a father to me than my own.

11 – TOMAS: I can’t -- I won’t let him down.

PANEL 5 – Back on Lina. There’s sadness and a bit of anger seething beneath her beautiful eyes, as subtle tears begin to well in them.

12 – LINA: But you’ll let me down. I get it.

13 – LINA (CAP): ...that you can’t figure out what it was that attracted you to them in the first place?

PANEL 6 – Lina heads for the front door, her back to us. Tomas sits, stoic, on the swing in the foreground.

14 – LINA: Good night, Tomas.

15 – LINA: I’m suddenly feeling sick and tired.

PAGE 10 – (cont.)

16 – LINA (CAP): Yeah, me neither.

[raya]

I may not have time to do this until next week. I'm very busy right now, but still want to take a shot at this! :bounce:

[Mangapen]

About 10 minutes work. If I wanted to spend more time on it I'd go back and bold some words in the text... anyway, 'quick and dirty' is my middle name... it's Romanian, I think...
http://img55.echo.cx/img55/5412/activity43lettered4pz.jpg

[Jason Arthur]

hope it's cool that I post it in the thread:

http://www.jasonarthur.com/temp/Activity43.jpg

-- J

[Kep!]

WHOOPS!
The words are now bolded.

[Mangapen]

hee... I was talking about my lettering, not your post Kep... but yeah, that should help others :-) Sorry about the confusion there :-)

[Jason Arthur]

well hell, I already posted mine with my own idea of what was bold. I also didn't color my captions and I'm too lazy to wait on Illustrator to load again, so I'm out for the night. Might find time to fix it tomorrow.

-- J

[Kep!]

Naw, don't sweat it folks. The bolds were in the script... I just forgot they don't cut-n-past into a forum. Sigh.

[Mangapen]

Not a problem... got mine bolded now :-) I changed the link in my original post to point to the new version

[leehawke]

mine :)

http://img101.echo.cx/img101/6513/activity43blee5qx.th.jpg (http://img101.echo.cx/my.php?image=activity43blee5qx.jpg)

[cyxodus]

Here's my entry. This is the first time that I've used the macro balloon action.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/cyxodus/DW%20Activities/DW_activity_43_01_letters.jpg

[Jason Arthur]

I dare someone to letter this entire page using the Macro Balloon code.

Any takers?

-- J

[cyxodus]

I did.

[Kep!]

Wait til you see what I'm gonna add to it. HEH.

[Kep!]

I did.

How long did it take you and did it save you any time?

[cyxodus]

It took me a little longer than I expected but I was doing it for the first time.

Once I got it down, it did save me some time. About 1 sec to create the balloon and about 3 - 5 secs to tweak it. I found that it doesn't work that great on 1 and 2 line dialog.

[Simon Bowland]

I'm just getting over the 'flu... any chance of keeping this activity "live" for a few more days puh-lease? I'd love to have a go!

[Kep!]

Consider it live. I'll post my version shortly too.

[Weed]

I'm pretty new to this so any crits are appreciated.

Note that this file is about 2.5 MB.

http://www.achieveitsolutions.net/Lettering/Activity43.pdf

Thanks,

Weed

[theflash]

this is like the second page i have ever lettered so crit me up!!

http://img196.echo.cx/img196/618/activity43copy4sb.jpg

[r nelson]

I haven't been over to this neck of the DW woods in awhile. Hope it's not too late to play...This is all in PS-CS.

[Scott Forbes]

hope it's cool that I post it in the thread:

http://www.jasonarthur.com/temp/Activity43.jpg

-- J

What font is that? Is it a free one? I am looking for somebody to letter my comic book (it would be for free) but if it did get picked up you would be payed.

[Simon Bowland]

Apologies for dragging my feet over this one - I recovered from the 'flu and then took myself off on holiday for a week with my fiance to recharge my batteries!

Really enjoyed working on this activity... let me know what you think of my efforts, all comments gratefully received.

http://www.simonbowland.plus.com/blacklight001pg010.jpg

[Kep!]

Nice work one and all! i like the comments I've seen too. Simon, you're not as late as I am.

so, with that said, here's how it went into the book.

http://www.kepink.com/activities/Blacklight-iss-1-page-10.jpg

[Gonzogoose]

I know this is over, but I wanted to post anyway. This is only my second attempt at lettering and my first with illustrator, so I'm anxious to get some crits.

I realize the font size might be too big and that I left too much space in a few balloons. Any other advice would be much appreciated.

So here it is:

http://www.paperdragonz.com/bfowler/images/Lettering/Activity43BWFRGB.jpg
And if for some reason it doesn't show up, here's the link:
http://www.paperdragonz.com/bfowler/images/Lettering/Activity43BWFRGB.jpg

And if you want to compare them to my first and only other attempt (which I used a combo of photoshop and MS picture it! for. UGH) check out this link:
http://photobucket.com/albums/v225/Gonzogoose/Lettering/

Thanks! :cool:

EDIT* Just by noticing some things on my own I decided to try to fix it up. Here are the results. Let me know if it's an improvement. Thanks!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/Gonzogoose/Lettering/Activity43bRGB.jpg

[cyxodus]

These all look great guys.

[Scott Wherle]

Wow, how the hell did I miss this? Nice work, everyone. How fun is it to see multiple talents lettering your stuff? Pretty fun, I gotta say.

[cyxodus]

It is always a blast to see. :happy:

[MikeStorniolo]

Alright, here's my FIRST try at lettering a page. There's a few things I'm not happy with, like a few of the tails and connections as well as placement, but I'm learning and working on getting them better...

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3681/dw438bq.th.jpg (http://img140.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dw438bq.jpg)

[cyxodus]

What software are you using?

[MikeStorniolo]

What software are you using?

Illustrator

[cyxodus]

Which version of Illustrator?

[MikeStorniolo]

Which version of Illustrator?


11

[cyxodus]

CS is really good. I use it myself.

[MikeStorniolo]

CS is really good. I use it myself.

So far it's been pretty good to me. Now I just need to get in some more practice and I think it'll be even better :laugh:

[cyxodus]

Just give it some time. Practice, practice, practice.

[Scott Wherle]

Of these all (aside from Kep's expert rendition), I gotta say I liked Simon Rowland's the best. Looks a lot like Marvel's style of lettering with the sentence case for the caps, but I won't hold it against you. :D

Really pro-looking job, Simon. Nice font, caps look good, excellent flow. I even like how you split up Tomas's dialogue in Panel 4 to move it around the art. Nice work.

[metr0man]

Obviously, this exercise ended MONTHS ago, but I've been outta the game for a good while. I moved and got a full time job which left little to no time for lettering :(

Anyways, I had some free time and decided to give it a whirl, since I see no more-recent activities up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v451/metr0man/letter-test.jpg

[Gonzogoose]

Very cool. The only critique I would personally have is the inconsistency in the shapes of your balloons. Interesting choice of gradient you used on the captions.



When will there be another one of these activities, guys?

[MikeStorniolo]

I decided to give this one another go at it. A lot, LOT of things are different, and hopefully better than my awful first page-try of it.

http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/4715/blacklight431da.th.jpg (http://img456.imageshack.us/my.php?image=blacklight431da.jpg)

Specs:

Font: JACK ARMSTRONG
Size: 9 Pt.
Leading: 10
Balloon Scale: 1.05

Made each balloon seperate, used a template tail I whipped up and some bold Jack Armstrong. One thing I was curious about, Color Gradients, how do I go about that? I clicked the gradient button, it goes to it in grey, tried to change it didn't work?

[vegetorott]

.......

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/vegetorott/Activity43letters.jpg

[maverick]

I'm using lerrtomatic 9 pt. can someone tell me if that is the correct size to be using for that particular font? thanks.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/9537/nativity43jbyw0.gif

[mb_motion/color]

Maverick I'm new to this but my comment would be definitley be careful with that thrid panel, I like the innovation of how the bubbles end with where the panel would be about, but it looks a little weird to me...also some of the tails get a little odd shaped in that panel.



thought I'd give this a quick go...(this time I tried doing everything before checking out the ones already finished) anyways this one bit more going on so I worked to make sure the word flow made sense and I think it works...let me know what you guys think.

http://www.mikebrucher.com/comiccolor/blacklight_page10.gif

Also I notice some of the large text pieces seem a bit much, is it normal for a leterer to break some of the large text up even if the script writes it as one chunk? (I would guess that is ok and an important task for the letter..)

thanks

mb
mikebrucher.com

[Kep!]

.......

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/vegetorott/Activity43letters.jpg

I really need to write up an essay on how and why to put tails certain directions...but the main thing you want to do is leave the scene open...when I I figure out a better way to say that, i will...but for now let the idea fester.

BIG GRIPES:

Panel 4: You dip out of the panel into panel 6, but the reader still needs to go to panel 5. This is a no-no. you're breaking the flow in an already difficult scene, it's your job to make sure the reader gets to panel 5 without a hitch.

Panel 5 & Panel 6: Ok, i like the creativity on the captions...but I don't like them here. Mainly because they look like "magic-talk"...I imediatly want to look for who is saying it in the weird voice instead of assuming it's internal dialog. This is a fine line to walk, but in this case, i don't think it was a good choice.

Panel 6: You have her speaking and the balloons bend back to her (closing off), but you have another caption the reader needs to read on the other side of the panel. I know it doesn't seem like a stretch, but mentally it is. Again, it's about leading the reader.

Finally, I really can't tell how big a font should be online...but this just looks small.

Do more! Do more!

[Kep!]

I'm using lerrtomatic 9 pt. can someone tell me if that is the correct size to be using for that particular font? thanks.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/9537/nativity43jbyw0.gif
WAY TOO BIG! Drop it by three points.

Panel 3 is a no-no except under extreme lettering chaos...which this isn't. Your lines are visible and clearly not part of the original art. Also, it closes off a scene the artist drew to be open...don't do that.

Panel 4/5: Same problem as above with the flow getting choked off and then expecting the reader to go to the caption box...not gonna happen naturally and it tears them out of the story. The way you have it has the reader dropping into panel 6 without reading the caption.

Keep going!

[Kep!]

Maverick I'm new to this but my comment would be definitley be careful with that thrid panel, I like the innovation of how the bubbles end with where the panel would be about, but it looks a little weird to me...also some of the tails get a little odd shaped in that panel.



thought I'd give this a quick go...(this time I tried doing everything before checking out the ones already finished) anyways this one bit more going on so I worked to make sure the word flow made sense and I think it works...let me know what you guys think.

http://www.mikebrucher.com/comiccolor/blacklight_page10.gif

Also I notice some of the large text pieces seem a bit much, is it normal for a leterer to break some of the large text up even if the script writes it as one chunk? (I would guess that is ok and an important task for the letter..)

thanks

mb
mikebrucher.com
I like 90% of this! i don't remember how I did it in the book, but i imagine it was similar...nice flow...here's the subtleties:

1. I have no idea what I don't like about the connector in panel 1, but it's either too long or too straight. I dig the pause it implies, but it loses it's impact by sticking out as much as it does.

2. the yellow of the caption boxes doesn't look to fit the palette. i'm a stickler about this...it makes a HUGE difference.

3. Panels 4 and 5 are choppy here...BUT! Not bad...and honestly, I bet mine were too. It's a really tough transition I don't think the artist paid quite enough attention to when he drew it.

Finally, when POSSIBLE, retain the integrity of the writer's text blocks. First off, it's not your job to pace his book...that's between him and the editor...you're not paid for it. Second, occasionally it's how a writer wants it (I had to redo several pages several years ago because I thought I knew better...I did, actually, but the writer was insistent and he was paying the bill!). No kidding. HOWEVER, in small cases you're perfectly within your right as the letterer to do what you have to do to make the lettering work. If it ever becomes too much...like you're doing it a lot...send it back to the editor...that's his job!