Welcome back, Sunnyville fans and everyone else out there. Picking up from where we left off last time, Rusty retreats upstairs into Sam’s room with Sam and her little brother Jason.
In this scene, I wanted to minimize the items tagging the picture as being Sam’s bedroom but at the same time, keep just enough to make it obvious where the characters are. I tend to be like Charles Schulz in that I focus more on the characters; they are the show and the backgrounds serve to establish where they are.
Schulz’s idea is not a new one. In traditional painting, this concept is one called “selective realism”. This concept is a simple one: the human eyes will focus on two to three of the most important details in an image and ignore all the rest. Even if you work in an incredibly detailed manner, you need to make your viewers and readers aware of the most relevant information in your image.
We humans are creatures of order. Our minds work with our eyes and look for order in an image like a comic book, a painting, an advertisement, a road sign and so on. If the mind cannot find order, it will try to create order in an image. If your work looks chaotic or cluttered, then you’ll lose your viewer.
That’s the main reason why I work the way I do. I don’t want to clutter up my images and make the reader lose focus of the characters. Some out there say that I’m lazy or just too stupid when working on my compositions but that is not true. A lot of thought goes into the pages I do. Anyway, moving on, I’m setting up one part of the conflict for our story.
I mentioned Dr. Hopper back in Sunnyville #11 (we’ll be meeting him soon enough) but we also learn about his son and his wife. Yes, the shout-out here to the Terry Brooks fantasy novel the Sword of Shannara is a deliberate one; I have read much of the Shannara series.
There’ll be more to follow next time, friends. In the meantime, sign up for the Sunnyville Stories mailing list if you haven’t yet. Stop over to DriveThru Comics for digital copies of Sunnyville Stories. Copies ofSunnyville Stories Volume 1 are still for sale on Amazon, both in print and Kindle formats! While you’re there, be sure to pick up Sunnyville Stories Volume 2 and (if you love Gothic horror) Von Herling, Vampire Hunter! And now available is the latest installment of the saga, Sunnyville Stories Volume 3. Get them today!
Copies of all the above titles are available to the library trade via Brodart Company and to retailers from Ingram and Baker & Taylor (via BCH Distribution). Copies are also available direct from the publisher. For ordering information, contact maxwestart(at)gmail(dot)com or write to:
Different Mousetrap Press LLC, 1100 19th Avenue N, #108, Unit J, Fargo ND 58102-2269 USA
