Sneek Peek: Crucible Page 1, Part 4 – Work in Progress

By John Freeman on February 24, 2012

So here’s another Work in Progress tease – Page 1 of CRUCIBLE Part 4.

Crucible: The Quest – Part 4, Page 1 – Inks

Just to show you how much thought Smuzz puts into his work, here are his Work in Progress notes…

“Apologies for not making the MineMouth any larger. If it was larger, we’d lose the ‘eyes’ detail (The pic bleeds to the edge of the page as it is), if the scale was smaller, the figures would be so small as to be unidentifable.

“Plants: It would be sooo much easier if these things had foliage on ’em, rather than drawing successive (Slightly oddly shaped) treestumps. I’m assming that centuries of trees have grown and died, gradually soaking up the ‘Nastiness’ from the soil. This leaves the place with a lot of stumps and some, few, trees with some foliage on in their brief lives. There has to be something for the mounts to nibble (Though I do wonder how safe it is for them to eat this stuff).

“No ‘grave’ for [PLOT SPOILER DELETED] is shown. This is a Lack on My part. I realised I weas thinking about it too much so I just left a ‘space’ for such a thing and got on with it. I have ‘sketched’ (Doodled) a post with a [PLOT SPOILER DELETED] hung on it, to be drawn in the Fgrnd but I kinda forgot to put the thing in, what with all the ‘Look at that’ excitement of Panel 1. One of the (Many) joys of art In Computer is that it’s poss to add this later.

“I’ve put the Mounts in one of the (Raised, in line with the sloping terrain) foundations of one of the ruined buildings. This means, partly, that it made the pic more visually interesting (And will, I hope pay off visdually in the later ‘Giant’ episode) but also so that the [PLOT SPOILER DELETED].

“You’ll note that Meith’s ‘hood’ is now torn (With his shoulder) and that his ear/side of face is bandaged. His right hand is in splints. This makes it hard to use a ‘Wand/Screwdriver’, but not impossible. Truug has a bandaged eye and an arm in splints. Aard has a bandaged nose and (Not visible) injured leg.

“I forget what’s wrong with Sylv right now, but Zingamy has – natch – no injuries.

I’ve left a gap for what I assume to be the title, above panel 3.

“Panel 2: A chance to draw a nice big face, after all that time packing ’em into tiny panels. It also compensates for that ‘fusdsy’ first panel. And – Ohh, look! – It’s Sylv.

“Panel 3: Gentle humour. Zingamy shoos off an inquisitive Mount.

“In summary: Thanks for this mere 3 panel page – really gave me an opportunity to draw summatt nice there.”

Teased enough yet? And this doesn’t even include the world’s Numbering System he and Eira have developed…

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.