Night on the Milky Way Railroad
Chapter 5 :: The Weather Station Pillar
Giovanni came to the base of the weather station pillar at the very top of the hill and plopped down into the cold grass. The lights of the town below were burning through the darkness as if the town itself were a miniature shrine at the bottom of the sea. He could faintly hear snatches of children’s screams and bits of whistles and songs. The wind howled far away and all the hill’s plant life rustled.
銀河鉄道の夜
第５章：：天気輪の柱
Night on the Milky Way Railroad
Chapter 3: Home
“Your father said he’s bringing you back an otter skin coat when he returns home this next time, didn’t he?”
“Everyone at school makes fun of me for that whenever they see me.”
“They all make fun of you?”
「お父さんはこの次はおまえにラッコの上着をもってくるといったねえ。」
「みんながぼくにあうとそれを云うよ。ひやかすように云うんだ。」
「おまえに悪口を云うの。」
Night on the Milky Way Railroad :: Chapter 2
When Giovanni left the classroom, some of his classmates, along with Campanella, were standing under the shade of the tree in a far corner of the school yard. They were no doubt planning where to float the gourd lanterns down the river for the festival later that night without him.
Milky Way Railroad: Chapter 1, Making of
I learn so much from reading other people’s techniques and get inspiration from knowing that even the pros have to work at their drawings for hours, even days, tweaking them to get them just right. Here’s my process from start to finish. I hope someone will find it helpful!
I used some techniques I learned from reading Sam Bosma’s blog. Go check him out, his work is crazy good!
I did about 15 or 20 thumbnails for this drawing before deciding on the one you see here. I’d post ‘em up but the sketchbook they are in is lying in a box on some boat in the pacific on its way to california from japan.
Rather than try to draw characters into a composition, I like to draw them seperately in pieces. This gives me the freedom to move them around in photoshop until I feel like I’ve got a good balanced composition based on my thumbnail. Also if you’re anything like me, drawing on a big clean sheet is nerve wracking, so this helps cause I don’t feel like I have to get someones face perfect or I’ve messed up an entire drawing.
I then printed the comp out really big using four sheets of 8.5 by 11 paper. Tape em together, and use tracing vellum to do my pencils. I would usually just draw the whole thing in photoshop, but my big wacom is also in the depths of a boat somewhere.
After scanning in the pencil drawing, I decided I wanted something more clean, so I went over the pencil lines with my little graphire that could. I also completely changed Zanelli’s face to fit more with the style of the rest of the drawing.
It helped a lot to get the values down before putting in color. There probably comes a point where you don’t need to do this anymore…but I’m not there yet. Coloring is the hardest part for me. To do this, I just trace the shapes using the line drawing, throwing in random values, until I’ve got every shape cut out and on it’s own layer (its very important to stay organized here, maybe create a separate folder for each character). Then I get rid of the lines, and use only the shapes to find my values. If it reads well without the lines, it’ll read all the better with them.
I would usually spend more time on shadows, but didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I created this quick layer of blue shadows and set it to multiply.
The red noses and ears…I dunno why I do it. I guess it makes them feel a little more alive. Maybe I’m modelling them after myself?
The bounced colors and shadows in the third picture… I don’t really know all the rules, and there are plenty of webpages out there devoted to this subject. I just kinda go with, if theres a red wall, anything next to it is gonna get a bit of a red tint. Sometimes I don’t care about the rules and just add whatever color I want. Sometimes that works, but usually it looks terrible.
Adding the lines back never gets old. Its like opening a present on Christmas morning.
I wish I could say that I hand make all my textures but the you could call me a big liar. I got the ones I used on this image from a great blog called Lost and Taken. Its full of all sorts of textures.
Using these help get rid of that cold digital feeling. Its a quick cheat though. I’m sure there are better ways. I usually put set these layers to soft light, but just experiment and find what works best for you.
Adjust the levels and color balance and you’ve got a finished image!
I gave myself two days to finish this (although I’ve been doing thumbnails here and there for at least a month now), so while I could keep tweaking and tweaking to my hearts content, my self made deadline is up and this is the final.
Thank you for reading :)
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第９章C リンゴと鳥たち
Chapter 9C The Apples and the Birds
In this chapter the characters looks out the train window to see a man standing atop a tall platform. He’s waving two flags around directing the migrating birds.
第９章B 青年と二人の子供
Chapter 9B The Young Man and the Two Children
These 3 board the train and tell our main characters the story of how they got here. They were on a ship that sank into the ocean. There weren’t enough life boats, so the young man held on to the kids keeping them afloat as long as he could, but he just wasn’t strong enough. When they came to they were on the train, now on the way to see their mother in heaven.
added campanella into the composition. now the whole gangs there. i also tried doing this shot from outside the train looking in through a window but failed miserably.
not my typical thumbnail format, but here’s a sketch of chapter 9, part 1 of 6 of night on the milkyway railroad
i think campanella needs to be in the scene as well or we might forget hes even there.
chapter 9a: giovanni’s ticket
from off to the side the bird catcher took a quick look and exclaimed
“well well, you got yourselves somethin special here! with that ticket you can go all the way to the heavens! even higher! why you’ve got passage to anywhere your heart desires. the holder of that ticket can travel anywhere they can dream of on this imperfect fourth dimensional milkway railroad. you boys are really somethin.”
第９章A ジョバンニの切符
鳥捕りが横からちらっとそれを見てあわてたようにいいました。
「おや、こいつはたいしてもんでうぜ。こいつはもう、ほんとうの天上へさえ 行ける切符だ。天上どこじゃない、どこでもかってにあるける通行券です。こいつをおもちになれぁ、なるほど、こんな不完全な幻想第四次の銀河鉄道なんか、 どこまででも行けるはずでさあ、あなたがたたいしたもんですね。」
so i totally reworked the bird catcher chapter. wanted to give more a feeling of an open expanse. like this dude and the birds are the only things out there.
this is where the story takes a turn for the surreal. the train passes by the northern cross, which radiates with a pure white light.
giovanni and campanella get off the train at the pliocine coast to take a walk around. here they find a crew excavating a 12million year old giant skeleton said to be the relative of the cow.
a bird catcher boards the train and shows them his bag full of birds. he breaks off a piece of bird for the boys to eat, and they realize its actually cake. the bird catcher then disappears from the train, and reappears standing in a field of sand off in the distance. a flock of hundreds of herons come flying down, and the ones hes able to grab by the legs, he stuffs into his bag.
