Angel & Faith

1. Wenxina: Hey Rebekah! Loving your work on the series so far... from what I’ve seen of it. With that said, I was wondering if the schedule for the art has been all laid out? Do you already know which issues you won’t be drawing? It sounds like there’ll be a guest artist for #5, am I right?

Rebekah: I think it should be okay to say this... we have a guest artist scheduled for issues 5 and 11 as of now. It looks like I will be drawing at least 20 of the 25 issue series, possibly more if time allows. I work pretty fast but because of the necessarily huge amount of planning that goes into a project as big as Season 9, we got a bit of a late start. The guest issues will help out with that. But I’ve read the #5 script and even though it’s technically stand-alone, there’s a lot of subtle character development that ties back into the continuing issues. It doesn’t feel like a "break" from the story for that reason.

I don’t think the guest artist for 5 has been officially announced yet, so I don’t wanna get in trouble, but man, he is an incredible artist. I don’t think they could’ve found someone who would make me look more hack-y by comparison! I’m SO excited to see his issue.

2. Nathan: Hello, your artwork is simply amazing. Are there any characters from the show that you really were interested in, but maybe won’t be part of the series? Not necessarily from an artistic perspective, but maybe just a character from Angel that you really enjoyed and wished you could have seen progress in the comics.

Rebekah: Cordelia was my favorite, and "You’re Welcome" was pretty crushing for me. But I’m not sure I would want her to reappear constantly as a spirit or higher power or whatever. Angel has enough pain in his life right now, I don’t think it would be healthy for him. I’m not caught up on the IDW books unfortunately, but I hear Illyria has grown a lot as a character and whether she appears in Buffy, a one-shot or a mini (I don’t know more about those plans than anybody else does!), I do hope she makes a cross-over apperance in A&F once or twice!

3. zianna: Hello, I love your art, and I hope to see you working on Buffy’s comics as well! In your opinion, whose story is more interesting and more promising? Angel’s redemption story or Faith’s with her fellow slayers and her personnal life?

Rebekah: his is gonna sound like I’m saying this to skirt controversy, but I’m honestly equally interested in both of them. I will admit that it seems that Faith has a better grasp on what must be done to redeem herself — Angel seems more bewildered by the task ahead, naturally — his mistakes are on a scale infinitely larger than Faith’s. Sometimes that can be easier to relate to, I think, someone who simply doesn’t have their s*** together. But naturally there will be events that will shake Faith’s sense of control — anything otherwise would be pretty boring!

4. angeliclestat: Hi Rebekah. Congrats on the comic-really beautiful work! In regard to likenesses was there any specific period of the shows you rewatched to study the actors to get their likenesses? And do you think you are at the stage where you are able to draw Angel and Faith without references?

Rebekah: Not particularly for anyone besides Angel — for him I was asked to focus particularly on his look in the early seasons of Buffy, since he shouldn’t age as a vampire. I rarely use photo reference actually. I drew Angel and Faith what felt like hundreds of times before I started issue 1, and onwards, trying to memorize their features. It’s an ongoing process, obviously! I mostly use photos on covers because those have to more immediately recognizable. On the interiors I don’t think I referenced a photo once on the last two issues. I wish I was better at using photos, but I have a tendency to focus on individual features and not the overall composition of the face when I draw from reference, and then when I pull away and look at the finished drawing, it’s like it’s in a funhouse mirror. So when I draw the covers I start by drawing them from my head and then refining the little nuances while cross-checking with photographs.

5. Bamph: Hello Rebekah. Welcome to the Buffyverse.Your art looks really great. Which character have you found easier to draw: Angel or Faith?

Rebekah: Angel without a doubt! Pretty girls are the absolute hardest thing in the world to draw.

6. cheryl: Hello Rebekah, thank you for taking the time to communicate with us. The preview pages look amazing. My first question is this, as a fan of Angel and I am assuming that you are a fan, what is your favorite thing about Angel, as a character?

Rebekah: It’s both heartbreaking and endearing how hard he tries to make up for his mistakes. I think just about anyone can relate to that, unless they are a complete narcissist. Don’t we all constantly worry about what we’ve done wrong and who we’ve hurt?

7. Moscow Watcher: Hey, Rebekah,

I haven’t read the issue yet, but the panels I saw are amazing. Congrats with your brilliant work. Question: was it ever discussed with Joss, Scott Allie or somebody else if you should draw Faith the way she looked on TV screen when we last saw her — or more mature, because time have passed since 2003? I ask this question because it’s not clear yet if the characters will get frozen in "comic book timeline" and will stay twenty forever. Thanks in advance for replying and thank you for communicating with fans.

Rebekah: The only direction I got in this respect was to make Angel look approximately Buffy Season 1-2 age because of the whole vampire=no-aging thing. But personally I’m trying to draw Faith somewhere in between her appearances in Angel and Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse. It is quite mind-boggling trying to do so, though, since Eliza has some supernatural power that allows her to look even hotter with every passing year!

8. Sosa Lola: Hey, I haven’t read the issue yet since I don’t have it yet, but I really loved what I’ve seen in the preview pages. You captured the characters really well and your art is just amazing. My question is: Since Angel and Faith live in London now, do you research certain streets and buildings to be more accurate when drawing the city?

Rebekah: Almost every street scene was drawn from a photo of an actual street I found on Google images. I do wish I could take the photos in person, though, because as an American with only a tourist’s knowledge of London, Google doesn’t give me context I can work with, i.e. what type of neighborhood is this street in? Is it always as deserted/populated as it looks in the reference? There are so many things I can’t know from it. That’s why I’m happy to be traveling to London for a third time next month, this time with a focus on exploring as many different neighborhoods as possible and taking thousands of photos. And eating 2 dozen scotch eggs. The other problem I’ve run into is when I’m drawing a deserted scene from a photo with tons of people in it — when I mentally remove those people, I try to fill in the gaps with odds and ends out of my head — hence the fire hydrant! I’m excited to get lots of photos of random odds-and-ends on streets there — they’re what really makes or breaks the authenticity of a city scene.

9. Bamph: Georges Jeanty has spent four years already as the artist on Buffy. Coming in as a new regular Buffyverse artist alongside him on Angel & Faith, I was wondering,did he give you any advice and did you look to his art in season 8 to help prepare you for your series?

Rebekah: Georges has been very generous and helpful. He gave me specific pointers on what to focus on with the two mains’ likenesses, and when I was first practicing them looking through his sketchbooks helped a TON with that. When doing likenesses you can’t get every feature exact unless you’re going for photo-realism, and it helps to see what features other artists have emphasized to get an idea of your own approach. At the beginning he also gave great advice on coping with the added pressure and exposure that comes with doing a Whedonverse book. As passionate as superhero comics fans are, they don’t hold a candle to Whedonites!

10. Bamph: We know there are going to be crossovers later on down the line in season 9. Joss said at Comic Con that after establishing both books on their own, they will then get crazy with the crossovers. With that in mind,do you think it would be fun to do a creative team crossover? Meaning that you would get to draw a issue/one-off or arc of Buffy and Georges would get to draw a issue/one-off or arc of Angel & Faith. Would you have any interest in something like that?

Rebekah: Personally I would LOVE to do that, and I think Georges would to, since he’s said that two of his favorite characters to draw in S8 were A&F. But I’m doubtful we’ll see a cross-over that extreme. I hope I’ll be proven wrong, though!

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http://slayalive.com/showthread.php/2021-Q-amp-A-with-Rebekah-Isaacs-for-ANGEL-amp-FAITH-1