In 2024 I’m delighted to say that I will be illustrating my next full-length book. The script is being edited and it’s time to start drawing. During the lull between Christmas and New Year, which felt especially lull-like because of the miserable weather, I took myself to town to buy some drawing materials to test out in advance of starting the work.
The drawing you do for a graphic novel is, more than likely, different than the drawing you’d do in a sketchbook. It’s also different to the drawing you’d do if you were making a one-off image, or even a picture-book (usually about 24 pages long). There are hundreds of images in a graphic novel and you, you alone, have to produce them all. It is, all things considered, a terrible business and one to be avoided at all costs!
Its necessary, or at least I think is, to tailor your approach to drawing to the necessities of the project (oof this is a dry newsletter. Sorry). The drawings have to be clear, relay plot, maybe/hopefully relay emotion, they have to be repeatable (over and over) and they have to appeal to you creatively as well as to an imaginary (for now) audience. So, it’s more than likely that some kind of adaptation of your usual visual style has to occur. You can’t approach each panel in the way that you’d approach a regular painting, you just can’t. You’d go mad.
I like this kind of necessary limitation. It’s a relief to have the parameters of a big project slimmed down for you, a little bit of choice taken away. Limitation is useful, it improves your work.
So here I am. At the start of a new book and I’m wondering…what will it look like?