3-4 Angelina
Friday, July 27th, 2007– Commentary –
J.D.: Ah, the beautiful Angelina.
Craig: She is very challenging to draw. It’s easy to depict creatures that deviate a lot from the human norm, like Hector or the magistrate in panel 6. But to capture beauty, especially the beauty of the feminine form, requires a kind of perfection. No details out of place, no proportions even slightly off.
J.D.: Well, that’s only true of… what’s the word? Mainstream beauty? Lillith and Lucky are beautiful women, not to mention Kate, who is more conventionally beautiful than they are. And you don’t have any difficulty drawing any of them. The challenging part, I imagine, is that you’re trying to capture a *superhuman* beauty in Angelina. Like you said, a “perfect” beauty.
Craig: Yes, that’s kind of what I mean. I tried to make Angelina’s beauty a kind of archetypal one — as if she were the model on which human beauty was based.
J.D.: One kind, anyway. She is the archetype on which Kate’s style of beauty exists, but Lucky’s and Lillith’s would have a different archetype, wouldn’t you think? Their appeal is on an entirely different level. The only quality they share is that they’re all female.
Craig: It’s interesting that you mentioned Kate. Kate is conventionally beautiful, but she is not proportionally perfect. Her facial structure is exaggerated, and her physical proportions are more like you might see in a manga. So in a sense, she’s easier for me to draw because I have more room for error.
Actually, that’s a great way to think about it — none of my drawings of people are really the same from panel to panel. In one frame Leon’s nose might be a little bigger, or the Maintainer’s head a little smaller. This is, of course, because I’m still not very good yet as an artist; I lack consistency. But with Angelina, I’m trying to depict a type of beauty that one might see in the Sistine Chapel — a beauty that is exactly the same from panel to panel. *That* is the most challenging thing about drawing her.
J.D.: She’s very easy to color. She has large masses of the same color in her style of dress. So really, the only challenge with her is shading.
Craig: I must say, you did a fabulous job with her wings. I remember the first time I saw panel 2, I was stunned that you had added depth to her wings, where in my pencils they were just flat outlines. You really improved my artwork. 🙂
J.D.: *blush* I wanted to find a way to depict the depth and featheredness of her wings without having to draw each individual feather every time. She would become too busy.
Craig: I agree. The way you did her wings gives her a very clean, pure appearance, which is exactly what I was trying to convey.
J.D.: I could feel that even in your pencils. I think even your soft sketches communicated your desire for the kind of woman you wanted Angelina to be visually.
Craig: You mentioned before that you thought Lillith and Lucky were a different kind of beauty than Angelina or Kate. I certainly see what you mean about Lillith; she is short and stout —
J.D.: — and well-endowed —
Craig: — indeed, which I agree is a different kind of beauty. One I personally enjoy. ;) But how do you see Lucky as a different kind of beauty?
J.D.: Now that I think about it, I think Angelina *is* the archetype of Lucky’s beauty, and not Kate’s. The difference, I think, that first struck me between Lucky and Angelina is not physical, but the dramatic difference in their personalities.
Craig: Ah, I think I see what you mean. I do see a resemblance between Angelina and Kate there. They’re both very self-confident and not afraid to be gregarious.
J.D.: Whereas Lucky, beautiful as we’ve seen her in the Zampona and coming out of the garage at home —
Craig: — or sitting down at dinner —
J.D.: — she hides herself. It’s as though she’s afraid of what will happen if anyone sees how beautiful she really is. I think she’s afraid of her own beauty, her own femininity. And I think that is the difference I first felt when I mentioned Lucky as being different from Angelina.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Hey,
Unless I’m mistaken we’re getting pretty close to where you left off before, right? We were just starting to get into the whole archons/hevenin deal… The walk down memory lane (with commentary) has been great, and now I can’t wait to see some new stuff 😉
July 28th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Yep, we’re getting close. We left off in the middle of chapter 3, and that’s where we’ll be picking up again. We’re looking forward to it.
November 19th, 2024 at 8:24 pm
Muchas gracias. ?Como puedo iniciar sesion?