2647 Complex Creature.
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This went up later than usual since I was feeling off. I’ll forego the blog since I have nothing of great importance to say. Hope to see you back on Monday. Mind your environment.
6 Comments
I want to tell you about something I have marvelled at in your art, and I have not seen anyone else mention it, ever. I only noticed it by a stroke of coincidence.
From the first time Alex showed up, her facial expressions reminded me strongly of a dear friend’s expressions. No other physical resemblance, just the repertoire of expressions (mostly the mouth, of course). Then I realized that no other character’s expressions ever reminded me of that friend, though often I would recognize some other person I knew in some other character’s expressions. And *then* I realized that every character in your comic has a different repertoire of expressions, just as rl humans do. (Though Ed and Jessica share a lot of overlap, they are not identical.) And it blew me away that your beautifully clean, spare drawings could express so much variation with two or three tiny lines. I am in awe.
This is another way you breathe life and relatability and humanity into your work. Thank you.
I have a fixation on facial expression for some reason. It’s always been important to me that the cast emote differently within the parameters of my art. If you don’t get the correct expression in an image then the reader will come away with the wrong tone for the scene. The rise of cell phones was actually difficult for me because I had a very hard time communicating with people if I couldn’t see their faces and correctly hear their inflection. Eventually I adapted when texting became ubiquitous because speaking as a series of words doesn’t bother me as much. I always draw Alex’s eyes in the sketch so her mouth correctly matches what her tone is supposed to be. If I don’t do that it doesn’t look right.
Like the old song said:
“I’m happy for you. I’d like to be happy for me.”
It’s not that you’re not happy for other people, it’s that their happiness just isn’t reaching you, specifically. It is possible to be happy for other people without actually, you know, being happy.
Complains to her girlfriend that her brother now has a girlfriend.
That’s a retardedly simplistic view of the situation.
Imagine the reverse, though. “Ed, I’m feeling down because of some irrational jealousy. My girlfriend… HAS A GIRLFRIEND.” “You mean, you? Yeah, that sounds irrational all right. Not sure that’s jealousy, though.”