Week 288! (Page 467 Script) (Patreon)

THIS MARKS PAYMENT FOR THE WEEK OF 2/9-2/15.

Second of three script updates for this month, it's for page 467.

Now this page can be talked about a little more than the previous, largely due to it actually featuring some sort of fight choreography going on. Obviously I don't really have much experience or practice drawing fight scenes (the last time there was an actual real fight scene in the comic was, uh, ten years ago), so this whole scene becomes interesting and a little daunting for me to think about, plan out, and write/draw. 

On one hand, the first three panels were kind of a nice change of pace. I could freely write them as just dynamic actions without needing to worry about camera angle consistency or character positioning in the environment, since a non-animated action scene can allow you to 'cut' the in-betweens of actions and motions as long as the flow of the comic page and action is maintained. You don't need to show every part of a sword swing, or even every sword swing, basically.

On the other hand, having little first-hand experience with fight choreography meant that I had to get into a different mindset on what I had to pay attention to, which was the flow of the action, making sure that, even if they weren't being drawn and shown, each attack made sense going from point to point. Fox Kale in this page swings from right to left to right, then spins around with the momentum of the third swing, attacks with his elbow, rears back, then swings one more time. Figuring out that point-to-point of the attack and making sure it makes sense is new and important; you wouldn't show three panels in a row of Fox Kale swinging only from right to left, as it cuts too much and wouldn't make sense in terms of flow. I actually had to stand up and physically act out the motions Fox Kale would have to make to do his attacks in order to make sure that it would make sense. 

It leaves me with a bit of envy towards comic artists that draw and choreograph fight scenes much more often, it's something definitely different from what I typically write and draw.