i'm going to walk you thru the making of one graphic novel page from start to finish. so if you have nothing else to do or are bored or maybe married, then fire up the popcorn maker and let's make some art!
FIRST, before i started anything i figured out what size and dpi each page would be and made myself a template:
----------
then i go to my story boards, created for me by the legendary TIM BOXELL:
----------
i copy the the story board into the psd file, pg 23 in this example, and size it according to the borders of the psd factoring in bleed @ print time. a note about pg numbers, going by tim's numbering i'm on pg 25, going by what pg i'm on its pg 23, i'm an artist, it doesn't have to make sense.
----------
this page, 23, and the one before it, 22, are the same size and layout. i use the story board image as a guide in figuring out how big each panel should be, in this case there are 4 panels and each should be 1140x1565 pixels.
----------
now it's time to look at the first panel and start to translate it into 3d. each time i start a new page i look at the story boards and i go back to the script and look at previous pages to think about lighting, time, emotion, etc... it's important point out that i've already spent years creating characters to use in the graphic novel. in this example the artist pascal blanche designed, modeled and textured the character:
----------
we are going to start w/vargas, pimp of the universe, on the left hand side of the page. this is my set up of lights and cameras in max. i'll go into more details about my settings in max on the next render for now i want to show an overview on how each page is put together.
----------
this is the finished render out of max. for the moment this is working. once i get everybody in the shot i review lighting and materials.
----------
this is enough for now, i'm starting to bore myself. we will pose, light and render dante in the next round. ding!
----------
