How It's Made: The Miracle, Page 3

Let's see how it's made for page 3 of The Miracle. 

Script

1a. Hana is dead, lying on the ground.

1b. The same shot, the wolf's shadow is over her now.

1c. The wolf drops the Elixir of Immortality on her torso.

2. We can see that there's blood coming out of the side of him. The blade is still stuck in him and he's bleeding out, it's black and his body is falling apart -- the ribs and spine are visible.

WOLF Little hare, the vial... Administer it to the child.

JADE Oh great Frith and El-ahrairah, what will we do now?

3a. Jade uncorks the vial.

WOLF Just the scent of it makes me feel young!

3b. Jade serves the elixir to Hana. Up-close shot of the elixir being emptied into her mouth.

WOLF Breathe! Awake! For your god...

3c. The wolf's eyes are growing dim.

WOLF Taste the nectar of Immortality! Is it sweet? Is it...

Storyboard

With these pages I started to break down the action into more panels to show, well, a sequential progression and to give each beat the space (and drama) that it needs. I noticed in pages past I would try and cram a lot together. Even though the artwork is mostly repetitive, I feel that it relates what's going on especially without the need for words.

Pencils

I setup a blender scene to help me get a laying down pose correct. I wanted to do this because it would be used over the course of three frames. I mean, she's dead, so she's not going to be moving from one frame to the next. Instead it's the shadow of the wolf's approach and then dropping the vial on her.

 

I like the freaky way the wolf is drawn in the middle panel with his ribs exposed. I remember making the conscious of having him falling apart as the story goes along -- this was around The Storyteller or Archer of the West. When he returned to the stage he had to have changed. The poison was rotting him away. That started because I found a cool image on dA of a wolf a wolf/dog with half it's head exposed -- it was macabre and I thought a nice touch if I did something similar. So now here he is, the rest of his flesh flittering away because Kamiko made her killing blow. He has just enough left to save the only girl who still remembered or cared for what he once was.

Final Art

That's all for this week!