Forest of Ghosts (Updated 07/05/2007)

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 8:03 am

Hi, just looking for any comments or criticisms regarding the general style and feel for this. I must say I do like it, but I've been staring at it quite a bit and might be too cross-eyed at this point to notice anything glaringly wrong. It's the first coloured page of a short story I'm working on. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

thirdeyeh · Post by **thirdeyeh** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:19 pm

The only two things that I would like to mention are:

1.) The colors all seem equal in there values of light or dark. It gives your color a very uniform feeling. I don't think you need to go crazy making colors lighter and darker, but I do think you could use a bit more variation. The reason being is that it will better draw the reader's eye towards certain areas. I think also using some colors that are a bit stronger would be helpful.

2.) You might want to bolden the lines around the tree and spirits in the last panel to ppush them forward some.

However man this is looking really good. Very clean.

andrew fulton · Post by **andrew fulton** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:15 pm

It has a very nice quiet, ghosty feel to it, which I think might even be lost a little if you go and bold the colours up too much. I think maybe the little spirit guys are a little too defined, with the black line around them. I can see how they would disappear entirely without it, so i don't know what the option is. Maybe a stronger white line?
Also I'm a little bit unsure about where the characters feet end up in the top panel. Is she standing on the tree root? Or behind it? It seems like the ground there is lower down than that. Or something.
But I do like it and am interested to see where it goes.

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:31 pm

Thanks for the input guys! I was going for a quieter feel, as the tone of the story gradually darkens so I wanted to keep a lighter atmosphere in the initial panels. The colors also will vary a bit (hopefully) as she makes her way into the forest and the fauna begins to vary.

I'm not 100% sold on the spirits myself. My initial sketch (which ended up in the Illustration forum) had white outlines, but I wanted to define them a bit more. I'll play around with that part.

I'll try to vary the colors in the coming pages. Thanks again for the input!

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:39 am

A few more pages. I did incorporate some of the suggestions made previously to the first page. I've left out the narration/words for now, as I'm considering submitting this somewhere. C+C welcome!

Og · Post by Og » Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:45 am

In my opinion, Scott, these last two are some of your best work. They're very, very good. Very polished and finished. I don't feel the need to pick your work to death, give you a bunch of suggestions.

Very nice, and I'm looking forward to more. Impressed that you've gotten this far...

andrew fulton · Post by **andrew fulton** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:59 pm

real nice, scott. The white outlines definately work a heap better than the black on the little spirits. Really brings them out.
Not sure I have anything really useful to add. The colours and compositions are great, there is a real sense of atmosphere and place, both in the drawings themselves and in the pacing of the strips. Hopefully there isn't too much dialogue and or narration to distract from that.
I am not entirely sure what happens in the first two of the three panel row there where the little spirit guys drop down out of the tree(?) It seems like the three guys drop down and get smaller as they hit the ground? Or do they jump down then run off into the 'back' of the panel while the guy at the front stands near the front? I think i'm confused because the front guy stays more or less the same size and the other two get smaller? Maybe I'm just reading it completely wrong.

That last panel is definitely gorgeous.

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:17 pm

Andrew - Thanks alot! I was aiming for atmosphere foremost in these pages, glad that came through. As far as the ghosts go, they are running into the background. In the second panel, the first ghost on the ground is actually the farthest away. It was a hard sequence to get across.

Steve - Thanks for the kind words. I've always valued your input, thanks for having a look!

Back to work...5 more pages to go.

Blom · Post by **Blom** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:41 pm

Strangely cool! The combination of the shapes and the man in the forest is great. It`s something that looks diffrent. I like it!

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:07 pm

Thanks Blom! It's actually a girl, but hopefully that becomes more apparent as she gets closer to the 'camera'. I updated the previews here to include the narration. Only 7 more pages to letter!

kidnemo · Post by **kidnemo** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:28 pm

Heya Scott, I really like this a lot.

Could you detail how you are coloring the background (the green/whiteish behind the trees) and the grass to get that water color-y effect?

Thanks much!

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:10 pm

Well...this is all fairly new to me as I'd never tried things quite this way, but let me try to explain...

I use photoshop and a tablet. The brush I used was a custom brush, that's shaped similar to a ripped piece of paper. I set the opacity and flow of the brush to 80%. I then set opacity jitter and flow jitter to pen pressure. There's also a bit of texture on the brush to give it a little roughness. The rest is just painting and happy accidents

Blom · Post by **Blom** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:22 pm

Scott Hallett wrote:Thanks Blom! It's actually a girl, but hopefully that becomes more apparent as she gets closer to the 'camera'. I updated the previews here to include the narration. Only 7 more pages to letter!

That is my mistake. Sorry about that, I can see it`s a girl.

TmDurn7 · Post by **TmDurn7** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:39 pm

Hey Scott, I still absolutely love the look of your comic. I'm glad someone already asked to about the brush and the texture effect because I think it's some of the best part of your work and it really activates space in larger areas that, left as flat color, could really detract from the piece.

I did want to point out a possible issue? I think that most Flight readers and artists are really affected by a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's work and when i first saw your smaller ghosts, I was immediately reminded of the little tree spirits in Princess Mononoke. I wonder firstly if there's any viability to my observation and secondly, if there is, is that a problem?

Regardless, it all looks great

Scott Hallett · Post by **Scott Hallett** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:04 pm

Hey Tim, thanks for the kind words. I'll have to admit that I am a huge Miyazaki fan, but in my defense I didn't intentionally fashion the spirits after those in Mononoke. I actually just took a typical 'white, transparent' ghost and reversed it. I chose the simple shapes to push myself to try and express emotion in the spirits with just movement and body expression.

The theme of humans walking amongst and interacting with spirit however, is a nod to Miyazaki, specifically Spirited Away.

I'll take any comparisons to Miyazaki as a compliment, and if the similarity in spirits doesn't bother anyone else, then it doesn't bother me

FLIGHT FORUMS

Forest of Ghosts (Updated 07/05/2007)

Forest of Ghosts (Updated 07/05/2007)

Who is online