Picture within a picture

Welcome once again to the http://il-logic.com/ bonus features. Under the microscope today is strip 2, panel 3.

I had a lot of fun playing with shadows in this panel, as I really wanted to get that feeling of high contrast you get in a darkened room with a television on. As you can see, as well as using a lot of black ink, I've also been more liberal with the white ink highlights.

Those of you who followed my blog before the dawn of il-Logic may have noticed that the image on the television screen is actually my painting 'Refraction'. I figured that, as the painting is (a) black-and-white and (b) in a different media to the rest of the panel, it might create the illusion of a television picture. I'm quite pleased with the effect.

Just for the sake of it, here's the panel before the painting was added to the television screen:

Another trick I've tried for the first time in this panel is to have elements breaking the panel frame. In this case, Edan's fingers are poking around the edge of the panel and into the gutter (that's what they call the frames around the pictures in the comicbook world, in case you're not familiar with the term... it's also where I'll probably be sleeping this time next year). I did this to help establish that Edan isn't in the living room with Lok, but just poking his head around the kitchen door. Subtle little things like that can actually help create the illusion of three-dimensionality.

As this is the behind-the-scenes version of the panel, you can actually see some of the ink bleeding over the edge of the frame on the left hand side. That's what you get with il-Logic: authen-friggin-ticity!

il-Logic and all associated imagery © Adam Di Stefano and Paul D. Selman 2010