Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Illustration Friday-Perspective

This week's Illustration Friday topic was a particularly appropriate one for me given the work I've been doing over the past few months. In mid February Adam and I launched our once weekly webcomic Robots! in 3D
The special thing about this comic however, is that is is presented to our readers in anaglyph 3D. After I draw each page in Photoshop Adam takes it through a special process (read more about his process here and here) that outputs the final anaglyph image. The whole process is unique to both of our working methods (you can't hide any poorly drawn object behind another object because it will be seen once it is in 3D) and it has really changed the way I approach creating the comic pages. 3D comics in general are kind a weird niche thing (we went and bought up pretty much all the ones we could find at our local comic shop which amounted a whopping total of three books!) but there's something very elegant about them that I really enjoy. In many of the ways that comics in general differ in their storytelling methods in relation to movies or tv, 3D comics really enhance that immersive experience. The reader controls the pace and flow of the story while reading a comic, but when the images you are seeing exist on different overlapping planes and move about your field of vision depending on how you move your head that completely alters the experience. The effect is even more impressive when you're turning the pages in a 3D printed book and the perspective changes as the page warps and folds!
The image that I chose to represent the topic is the first page (technically 2 pages as it's a double page spread) of book #1 of Robots! in 3D. It was a particularly challenging image to draw since landscapes are always something I have trouble creating convincingly. And if you don't have 3D glasses, do not fret! You can learn how to  make you own here or check out the image in 2D here.
Anyone else have any favorite 3D comics? Adam says he remembers reading a Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge one when he was a kid. As a diehard Ducks fan I would kill to find that issue!

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