Killing your darlings

8-9-2014
Some time ago, I explained how I sometimes like to build up my pieces from multiple drawings, as a sort of collage. A large part of that is the phase of 'killing your darlings', that is to say: decide which parts of the separate drawings will overlap, and therefore,which parts you'll lose.
Now, I always like to bring some amount of detail to my work, so a lot of hard work also goes into these missing parts. Of course you could say compose the image in your head, and keep that in consideration as you are working, but the problem is that the fun part in choosing this method lies in the experimentation with the various parts: that's the composing phase. If you would take the various places of the components into consideration from the beginning, you might as well stick to making one complete drawing directly.

Now, sometimes you get lucky, and you get to keep a fair amount of the supporting work, like in this example:
To bad I had to lose the obvious effect the plight of the teacher has on the pupil in the fore front, but hey, sacrifices have to be made!

And most of the time, I am quite strict with myself: the effect, the impact of the finished work always has to come first. In that respect, the detail in the background work only functions as a strengthening factor for the drawing as a whole. Only very seldom, I will get so taken with for instance a certain prop, that I allow it a more prominent role.

 

But most of the time I stick firmly to my rule of thumb: the end result is paramount! Not always an easy choice, as for instance with regards to my latest update, the POW cover...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now, I knew from the beginning that this was going to be a cluttered page, with four figures in there, and room for text. But still: it took me more then one night (I mainly work in the dark hours) to get this pick up truck on paper.

And for it's final use in the actual piece, well, go to New, and feel my pain...

 

COCO

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