Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Atland #218 - The Taking of Prisoners


We're nearing the scene of our final showdown. Those three pillars of rocks are the lair of the Nameless One.

The dwarf pope is riding a new beast, the dwarven equivalent of a BlockHead, called a HornHead (creatively enough). I first imagined him being carried in a giant litter, but thought this would be more fun. HornHeads are bred by the dwarves to carry only the highest ranking dignitaries. They're generally smarter and more obedient than the BlockHead.

So up until this episode I have been 'drawing" every dot of snow with my stylus. Yeah...TEDIOUS. Tap tap tap tap tap... Finally I realized I could just make a template for snow in Adobe Illustrator. So I made a few different sized snowflakes and then then duplicated them hundreds of times. Then I turned them white and voila! All I have to do is drop the snowflakes on a layer in photoshop, zoom them in or out depending on what the camera angle is for each panel and add a little motion blur. Much faster and the change is hardly noticeable.

Next week, Bruce puts his tracking skills to good use but someone or someTHING is spying on them...

~N

3 comments:

  1. The horn head rocks, Nate! The snowflake reveal had me slapping myself in the head and saying, "DUH!" Thanks for sharing man.

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  2. Last panel = superb.

    The change in snowflake technique is not noticeable at all. I do something similar with stars in the sky. I haven't had a great need yet for snow.

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  3. Very cool. I like how you can see the rocks off in the haze in the first panel, then seem them clearly in the last panel.

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