Activity: Drawing Time
Part 1: Actions within a drawing
The idea here is to build up a repertoire of ways in which you can represent movement. Part of how comics work is to capture not just a static moment of time (like a photo), but a span of time passing.
Click on the link to see examples of other students' work with critiques and commentary.
- a person running
- a car speeding
- a ball falling
- a person staggering
- a newspaper page blowing in the wind
Part 2: Actions within a panel
The main focus of this part of the activity is to think about how readers follow complex action within a panel. Again, time passes within a panel: an action and its result can be depicted right alongside one another, but still be perceived as happening one after another. You'll need to use techniques you worked out in the first half of this activity to make the action clear, but then add a layer of thought about reading order, and where readers can be expected to look, in what order.
Click on the link to see examples of other students' work with critiques and commentary.
Homework: Drawing in Action
What you should be aiming for in this assignment is something along the lines of the "Drawing time" activity—a complex action that requires readers to follow along a certain path to understand it. The content is entirely up to you, but think of your characters as telling the story with their bodies.