Girlz 'N' Games #47: Transforming Ancient Egypt
The first of 2 Transformers themed comics...
This strip was a lot of fun to draw, even if it involved a considerable amount of Google Image searching. Can you ID the movies and characters being referenced in the bottom panel?
For the record, the only character that was particularly difficult to sketch was in fact The Fallen (there, I've given you an answer already). Although I'm no Transformers fan I now have incredible respect for the concept artists and character designers who came up with such intricate models. Even drawing dumbed down, simplified versions of them is challenging.
Anyway, the real point of this comic was to highlight just how often Hollywood has transplanted fantasy/sci-fi "weirdness" into Ancient Egypt, crediting anyone and anything (woolly mammoths?!) with responsibility for building the Pyramids... The people who seem to get the least acknowledgment for this World Wonder are the Ancient Egyptians themselves. I guess modern man really struggles with the thought that our ancestors weren't so technologically backwards after all. To this day they stump our "advanced" 21st Century minds with their ingenuity and building precision using the most basic of tools... and slave labour.
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Having been asked about my comic creation process a few times now, I thought I'd include a step-by-step guide. First there's basic thumbnail sketching - usually on a piece of notepad or a Post-It - to scamp out the panel contents (which I forgot to scan, doh!). This is followed by the full-size pencilling on paper.
Still working on paper (cos I'm Oldschool like that!) I then ink over the pencil with my favourite fineliner/marker. Once the inking is complete, the pencil lines are erased.
At this stage it's time to finally go digital. I scan the comic at 300dpi, then work in Photoshop with my mouse and Wacom tablet fixing errors (usually slips of the hand during the inking stage), getting the contrast and brightness right, drawing the comic's frames and basically collating the strip the way I want it. Although every panel is different in this comic if I'm doing a "lazy" strip that uses repeated images, or, rather, portions of images (example here), I will copy, paste and tweak the image as necessary. I will of course only have drawn it once during the pencilling stage.
Now it's time for the base colouring. Creating a new layer for the colour to sit in, I set it to Multiply mode, and then use the Magic Wand and Fill tools to, well, colour in.
Once the basic colour is down it's time for the shading and highlights, each of which sit on their own layers (Multiply mode for shading, Normal mode for highlights). To make my shading darker and more striking, I actually duplicate the layer once I'm finished so there are 2 shading layers on top of each other. Out of interest, the shading stage is where I use, and enjoy the freehand potential of my Wacom pen the most.
Finally, having completed the shading, it's time to add in the dialogue, speech bubbles and dialogue lines. Then it's time for a resize, resolution downgrade to 72dpi for online viewing, and saving it as a JPEG for web. You can see the final finished product at the top of this blog entry.
This strip was a lot of fun to draw, even if it involved a considerable amount of Google Image searching. Can you ID the movies and characters being referenced in the bottom panel?
For the record, the only character that was particularly difficult to sketch was in fact The Fallen (there, I've given you an answer already). Although I'm no Transformers fan I now have incredible respect for the concept artists and character designers who came up with such intricate models. Even drawing dumbed down, simplified versions of them is challenging.
Anyway, the real point of this comic was to highlight just how often Hollywood has transplanted fantasy/sci-fi "weirdness" into Ancient Egypt, crediting anyone and anything (woolly mammoths?!) with responsibility for building the Pyramids... The people who seem to get the least acknowledgment for this World Wonder are the Ancient Egyptians themselves. I guess modern man really struggles with the thought that our ancestors weren't so technologically backwards after all. To this day they stump our "advanced" 21st Century minds with their ingenuity and building precision using the most basic of tools... and slave labour.
-----
Having been asked about my comic creation process a few times now, I thought I'd include a step-by-step guide. First there's basic thumbnail sketching - usually on a piece of notepad or a Post-It - to scamp out the panel contents (which I forgot to scan, doh!). This is followed by the full-size pencilling on paper.
Still working on paper (cos I'm Oldschool like that!) I then ink over the pencil with my favourite fineliner/marker. Once the inking is complete, the pencil lines are erased.
At this stage it's time to finally go digital. I scan the comic at 300dpi, then work in Photoshop with my mouse and Wacom tablet fixing errors (usually slips of the hand during the inking stage), getting the contrast and brightness right, drawing the comic's frames and basically collating the strip the way I want it. Although every panel is different in this comic if I'm doing a "lazy" strip that uses repeated images, or, rather, portions of images (example here), I will copy, paste and tweak the image as necessary. I will of course only have drawn it once during the pencilling stage.
Now it's time for the base colouring. Creating a new layer for the colour to sit in, I set it to Multiply mode, and then use the Magic Wand and Fill tools to, well, colour in.
Once the basic colour is down it's time for the shading and highlights, each of which sit on their own layers (Multiply mode for shading, Normal mode for highlights). To make my shading darker and more striking, I actually duplicate the layer once I'm finished so there are 2 shading layers on top of each other. Out of interest, the shading stage is where I use, and enjoy the freehand potential of my Wacom pen the most.
Finally, having completed the shading, it's time to add in the dialogue, speech bubbles and dialogue lines. Then it's time for a resize, resolution downgrade to 72dpi for online viewing, and saving it as a JPEG for web. You can see the final finished product at the top of this blog entry.
Comments
You're right. It seems everyone else gets credit for making the pyramids except the Egyptians. Or their Jewish captives. Or any other slaves they had at the time.
Curiously, though, the Aztecs seem to get no respect for their pyramid-like temples, either. Even more curious is that the Egyptians get credit for them.
Huh.
I know quite a few people were upset by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's implication that Mayan achievements were entirely the doing of aliens/inter dimensional beings.
@Pfangirl, here is some more info on the Cocaine Mummies: Ancient Egyptians' Use of Intoxicants.
Thanks for sharing that link. Will definitely check it out :)