Star Wars Screenplay to Comic Page Process

Here is my current progress on my comic page interpretation of a screenplay extract. What I did here was read the screen play extract and wrote down the scene I wanted to visualise. I started with a few rough idea of how the comic page could be laid out. I intended to include the main story beats of this particular scene.

Page 1 Process

Initial Sketch

Base colouring of comic characters

Base colouring of Background

Character Shading

Page 2 Process

Initial Roughs

Line Art

Base Colouring

Shading Applied

Lighting Adjustments

Final Page

Final Page 1

Final page 2

Evaluation

I feel that I have achieved a visual approach to converting a screenplay extract into a visual comic page. I feel that I managed to get the characters translated okay in a style and captured the main key traits of their appearance.
An appropriate balance of traditional and digital techniques such as sketches and a graphics tablet was used to produce digital drawings. The characters were translated through a reasonable visual style, capturing the key traits of their appearance and provide a form of exaggeration to allow their facial expressions to be read clearly. The literature source of the screenplay helped provide an insight into how the comic could be visualised. The chosen art style was problematic while implementing the character’s proportions. The continuity of certain objects laid out in the scene varied from panel to panel especially for the background.The line work was thin and rough but it could be improved by thickening the lines and adding weight to them to help provide a more solid drawing.
The backgrounds were the weakest area because they were drawn last. This was overcome by digitally painting over the final comic image as a means of working efficiently without escalating the complication of the layers.
In hindsight, a quick floor plan in the form of a small drawing would have been beneficial. In response to this experiment, the production of the comic pages and the chosen visual style for the project artefact were changed. The inclusion of additional panels would have benefited the narrative.
The media tests were a technical experimentation of production values, including the application of current understanding of comic conventions and how they can be used to visually translate a scene from a screenplay.

In short, this was a test to demonstrate where I was with my skills in illustration.

Reference

Vaz, M., Lucas, G. and Hales, J. 2002. The art of Star wars, episode II, attack of the clones. New York: Ballantine Pub. Group, pp.200, 2004.