behind the scenes - part three

The ninth image in the sequence is taken from the middle row.  These images are in comic strip.  They recount the protagonist's interrogation.  In this picture, the last one in the row, he is taken away to be tortured... !

I began drawing everyone in charcoal, scaled so that they would fill the panel.

 I wasn't so keen on how that turned out.  I've noticed that if it is at all possible I tend to omit any contextual information from my drawing (like where the characters actually are!).  I forced myself to scale down the characters and add a little bit of information about the room they are in. 

As usual I started the drawing with the the focal point... no good working for hours only to mess that bit up!

That done, I added the rest of the characters and attempted a couple of staircases and a door.  Got to practise doing that sort of thing more often!

Moving on to the next row, I began with the image on the right then drew the other two.  The right hand one seemed the most likely to go wrong... but it didn't.  Hurray!  I think that little panel is one of my favourite pictures from the whole commission.  Curiously, when I look at it I think of the soccer player Michael Owen discussing his retirement.  That was playing on the radio when I drew it.  I listen to spoken word a lot when I'm drawing and I find that the two things get mingled in my mind so I can't see or hear the one without thinking of the other.  Viv pointed out that this is what they do in A Clockwork Orange!  

Now I had to do the last panel.  The previous lot had gone well so I started to get afraid I would ruin it.  This is never a good place to be when drawing ^-^!  I drew the character of the inquisitor first, thinking him the most important... and sure enough he went wrong, not catastrophically wrong just walking potato wrong.  I contemplated starting the whole thing again but that seemed like going a bit far so I just pressed on anyway and tried to lose him in a bit of a crowd.  

Finally I added the protagonist being dragged away in the background... here's how it turned out in the end:

Actually there is one little thing missing.  In the middle picture the inquisitor is holding a scrap of the periodic table when he asks, do you know what this is?  I almost forgot to add that before the piece went on display.