Dynamic drawings

Not MY dynamic drawings. But Stuart Immonen. He's the penciler for NEXTWAVE: Agents of H.A.T.E. It's a fantastic book written by Warren Ellis that, incidently stars Monica Rambeau as the leader of a group of superheroes. Immonen and Ellis' Monica is better then my redesign (earlier post) and much better then any treatment she's gotten before. But I'm off track.

Dynamic drawing. Stuart Immonen.

I realized something when I was reading Nextwave, namely that Immonen is not big on backgrounds at all. Often, there is no background and when there is, it's not piled up with jaw dropping detail. I think that's because his people are so active. His characters are always moving or expressing something with their faces. Who needs background when the characters are so full of life?

What I think is that to tell a story in panels the background can play as much a role as the characters at times. When that's the case you don't need characters who are expressive. But if you lay off the background, you've got to make up for it in how you portray your people.

One of my problems with penciling is I don't do backgrounds. The detail bores me. Which is not a good admission to make, I know, but it's a lot of work. But my characters aren't dynamic either. They're static, they sit on the page and pose. Either I've got to buckle down and work on backgrounds or I've got to buckle down and get to work on drawing more characters in action. Since styles like imminence appeal to me, I think I'll have to work on the action bit.