Under The Clouds: Act I, Chapter 1, Scene 1a
I have been going back and forth on how to open the story. Originally I had a bird to follow, piercing through straggles of cumulus clouds to an overall view of the floating city. Then it hovered on a street view above a few passing vehicles, landed on a mailbox to introduce the protagonist Max who burst out of the front door to catch a coming school bus.
A lot of things changed past few years so did the script. What I have on my script right now is with Max rummaging through his things on a table in his room, trying to find a sketchbook, then he ran out to catch a school bus.
The script is written to a restriction of 90 to 100 minutes screen time as if it’s a feature film. When I decided to do a graphic novel, it opened up the story again and I started to rethink and rearrange plots since they could be limitless. It is one story, therefore, one graphic novel. Restriction should still be applied but no longer being tied to a length of time.
I went back to how I originally imagined the opening scene but without the part where a bird navigating through threads of clouds.
I drew the bird based on Alpine Chough after a brief research on bird species that were able to fly a high altitude. I didn’t want vultures or eagles so settled after a bird that resembled crows or grackles. Its natural hide is black like crows and grackles that have nested in cities and towns.
Purple is the color of magic. For example, in the movie, Frozen, purple was heavily utilized in adorning an environment for Elsa. Black and white are commonly the colors of modernity in both fashion and architecture. Green, obviously, is the color of nature.
To me, purple is the color of envy while to the husband of my English or (shall I say) ESL teacher back in school, green was the one that induced jealousy. Ghosts usually wore white in cinema while black has been always the choice of fashion color when morning death. Purple is also unique. There is rarely a purple building, a purple jacket or clothing, and I can’t recall the last time that I saw a purple car. However, it didn’t seem to be very uncommon to see purple in fashion choices of royalty from the era of monarchy. Magic, scarcity, power … the color purple cannot be more fitting to be the symbol of envy.
Thus, purple has become my choice for the color of the bird and the color of the tallest tower on the platform.
The above are models of cars that will speckle across rails of city traffic in future scenes. I am not finished with setting up the next drawing yet because of time. The empty lots will be filled by copies of a few variations of the below house. I think that will save me a lot of time by sparing me of tedious detailing labors.
I hope my next post will conclude the opening scene. I am planning 2 more drawings perhaps 3.
I cannot believe I have actually started drawing my graphic novel. For years, it was just a huge idea of mine and finally it has started to consolidate a little by little into digital imagery.
That will be all for this week and thanks for checking it out and take care.