3-3 Mailer-daemon
Monday, July 23rd, 2007– Commentary –
Craig: I did a lot of UNIX programming in college, and I’m a Linux user nowadays. Whenever I would get mail, I would always see the message “mailer-daemon: You have mail.” I always had the mental image of this little winged guy coming to bring me my mail. And thus Hector was born. 🙂
J.D.: I like Hector. I had a lot of fun with his jewelry and clothes. It’s not complicated, but it’s all very elegant. Hector is a man of taste.
Craig: The symbol on the door in panel 6 is the same as the symbol on the Maintainer’s mantle on page 2-16. (See also: the shape that Leon’s chains make on page 1-24.)
Craig: I remember designing Hector’s outfit when I drew panel 2. I liked how you made his bracelets open on the inner arm. It’s details like that that make me very happy to have you as my inker. 🙂
J.D.: 🙂
Craig: Panel 1 must have been a nightmare to color for you.
J.D.: Yeah, three layers of realm-shading. Fun.
Craig: Let’s see… the base realm color is pink for Haven. Leon and his clothing are green for Mythband.
J.D.: And the Burger Star stuff is brown for Earth. Not to mention the printed-out email that Hector is carrying in panel 2.
Craig: How do you apply the realm shading? I know when I supply you with the pencils there’s no color in it.
J.D.: Well, Penance is really a black-and-white comic. All of the shading is done in tones of grey. I then put what’s called a “mask layer” above the shading and I adjust that to the color that I want for the realm. Then I paint in where I want that color to appear on the mask layer. When I have one realm, I can just flood-fill it. When I have multiple realms to contend with, I have to paint in the object on the appropriate realm layer and erase them from the others.
Craig: So each additional realm in the panel doubles your work.
J.D.: Just about. It depends on how much of that realm is in each panel. Like the Burger Star bag and the email weren’t actually that much work because they were very small objects to paint in the Earth realm and erase from Haven. Leon and his crap are another issue.
Craig: I like how Leon has bed-head in panel 4.
J.D.: Yeah. That was fun to color. And you can tell on panel 5 that all he was able to do was run his hands through his hair a few times on his way out.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Hello! I don’t have more to say than that I enjoy your work very much. I hope you keep it up for us silent watchers…