Saturday, 11 April 2020

Hamlet (The New Book) - work in progress Part 4: Art


Having scripted and laid out 110 pages on the new book - Prince Of Denmark Street -  as pencil roughs, the next stage is the rewrites, of which a lot are needed. After which I'll get onto the art. For which I will need more Bristol Board. I ordered a new pad from the London Graphic Centre on March 28th and haven't received it yet, so I'd better up my online art supplies shopping game pronto. Good job it's only Easter Weekend, so everything will be working even more reliably than it is at the moment. (For future reference, this is all taking place during the Covid 19 lockdown).

Sunday April 12th: Hev and Steve both give me great script notes (Steve notes I've had characters refer to Hamlet as Macbeth at least 3 times, for starters!) and I do extensive rewrites, bumping the total number of pages up from 110 to 118. Here's what extensive rewrites look like in my world:


Art supplies wise, Amazon are winning, with two A4 Bristol Board pads delivered on Easter Sunday, the day after order. Meanwhile Stationery World, on Park Street in Bristol, which we can't visit obviously because of the lockdown, have been contactable by email, so three A3 Bristol Board pads are on their way from them. London Graphic Centre has yet to deliver or respond to emails.

Monday 13th: Got the 8 new pages written and the panels re-ordered and relaid, lettered as tifs, saved as jpgs, then I have to paste them into the double page spreads and renumber all 118 pages before I can pencil layout the new pages and... this bit is really boring, and it took all day. But tomorrow, hopefully, I might actually start drawing something as actual proper artwork.

Tuesday 14th: After a day of relaying and renumbering scribbled layout pages - FIRST PAGE PENCILLED! I began, slightly randomly, with a scene from the middle of the book (pages 62 - 65 laid out, page 63 pencilled, below). Only another 117 to do and we've got us a book.


Continued in the next blog....

Previous stages are in these previous blogs...



Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Follow Kev on Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here

My debut graphic novel Findlay Macbeth, available to order now: http://kevfcomicartist.com
Schools and libraries can order it via Askews and Holt or direct from Kev F.
ISBN 978-1-5272-5853-2 

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