Friday, April 14, 2006

LOTO

My cousin, who is a French teacher, is trying to publish a text book. He asked me to illustrate some units that he and other teachers came up with. He gives me a general description of a short story in which the images cover a variety of vocabulary. The story itself doesn't have an ending so the students can come up with an ending for themselves. The whole point is to fascilitate a dialogue using new vocabulary they learn.

Below is one story in which a person buys a lottery ticket with hopes of winning big. The person later (plus tard) finds out that they won but cannot find the ticket. After a while of searching depression sets in and the audience must come up with their own conclusion.

I initially try to figure out what the characters will look like by doing a variety of sketches. I thought the main character should be a nerdy kind of waif, hopefully making her a really tragic character.

I do panel layouts, usually in non-photo blue pencil, add details with a mechanical pencil, go over everything in black ink, and use photoshop to bump up the contrast, add text, and tweak any blemmishes. Because I haven't been doing a lot of drawing lately I've found that I'm definitely out of practice. I'm especially having trouble figuring out my background perspective. Please feel free to give me any critique or advice. It would be much appreciated.

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