Yo Joe!

I'm not sure where I first got this idea, but I'm 90% sure that I didn't think of it completely on my own. Artists use reference all the time. I'm not certain that most people realize just how much reference the average artist uses. Photos, live models, books, drawing on location, the internet, books, miniature mannequins, and, oh yeah, books (seriously, you can tell a lot about an artist by their bookshelf).

Anyway, one of the cheapest ways I've ever solved the problem of figuring out how to stage a scene is by putting my action figures to good use. While it might look a little ridiculous--in fact I'm sure it does--setting up a few posable action figures in relatively the blocking I want saves me a lot of headaches, and in some cases saves the drawing.

In this panel, the goal was to have a guy cut in on a dance, with the girl looking happy and the other guy looking angry. This is kind of a complex panel, since three people are going in different directions, and each one's facial expression is important. So, I took Stormshadow, Cover Girl, and Luke Skywalker and put them in the staging I knew would be required. Then I grabbed my digital camera and started taking some pictures from different angles. When I started doing this, I immediately noticed that what I originally had in mind wasn't going to work. Thus, if I hadn't done this, the panel wouldn't have been very successful. You can view the finished page on my Deviant Art page (link on the right). Poor Luke, in every scenario, he gets pushed away...