Metronaut 3

Page 3 took a couple of weeks longer than intended as I balanced a couple of other projects at the same time (more on those hopefully in a future post). This page's visual theme is the London Underground map. I printed off a copy of the tube map and cut it to fit within the The Tube Titan's jacket with a craft knife. While it would have been easier to have bothered to learn layers and do it digitally I decided to do it all by hand so that the original art looked complete if I ever sold it or used it as a portfolio piece (this is entirely an idiosyncratic logic on my part and really just stubborness to pick up computer design skills).

That said, the map scanned terribly while trying to get the levels right on the inks so I've no idea how it'll turn out at the printing stage. Because The Tube Titan and his Tube map chest tattoo forms the centre piece of the page the backgrounds on this page are a bit weak. On the bottom left panel when Metronaut flees Robo Plod I sacrificed detail for speed and sense of movement (but still screwed up the proportions and perspective as Titan now looks tiny or Roboplod is ginormous depending on how your eye reads the panel.)

There's also the fact that none of the reflections in Titan's Glasses or Metronaut's visor on the first two panels would actually work in real life but I'll admit to artistic license and wanting a visual story telling device over the accuracy of reflections on curved surfaces.

Page 4 will be a more conventional comics page in terms of layout, honest.