ALPHA is a comic collaboration with my friend Pablo Jimenez. The short script is the start of a longer story. In this first sequence we see how a prisoner in a walled medieval city is sentenced to die by expulsing him from the city. The menace that threatens the live of whoever dares leaving the protection of the walls is left unknown at the end of this first part.
This first Post shows the first part of the process where the layout for each page has been designed in a thumbnail size and scanned in order to be scaled up and traced over in major detail and accuracy.
SCARRED is a short collaboration with Louise Quirion, a student in the MLitt last year. She sent me a short script I made these six pages for. I spent a week working on the pages layouts and the character designs, and another week to draw and ink it, it still needs the text to be laid out on top. Due to the lack of time for this project the last pageâs quality was compromised in order to meet the deadline I gave to myself. However, if there was time toward the end of the semester I may try to improve its design.
As said earlier this last page is the weakest for the lack of time. The panels layout is clearly rushed and the character designs are too exaggerated, more work will be put in it if thereâs time towards the end
This is a contact sheet with the colour thumbnails for each page, to get an overall feeling of the chosen palette. The different palettes used to reach the final version are displayed in swatches at the bottom of the sheet. In this stage the colour works well in a small scale. However, when the outlines are overlayed on top the colours detract from the drawing. Hopefully this is only due to the abstraction at this rough first stage, which needs more definition and work on the tonal values, but thereâs a chance of it being because they are too bright and opaque and draw too much attention.Â
Underneath Iâve attached the same thumbnails scaled up and with the outlines overlaid on top to get a better sense of what it looks like at this level.
This first page is the one Iâve worked the most on, and even though while working on it I felt quite happy and motivated (thus the amount of detail) after receiving some feedback I realised how little experience I have with the media and how far I am from the level of mastery it takes to develop a more expressive, minimalistic approach...After watching a few tutorials, Iâve realised that even though Iâd really like to be able to master this media thereâs little time left for the final submission and if this technique detracts from the drawing I may as well submit it in black and white. I believe, though there may still be time to do it with watercolours, so Iâll definitely give that a go.
This is a first attempt to incorporate the posters and and other media consumed by the protagonist. These objects are meant to both introduce the characterâs personality, as well as the story, in order to make sense. However, so far I havenât managed to make it work as good as Iâd like to, this may be because I didnât incorporate these elements in the original design, now compromising the general composition and value balance. Thus, I might have to try to fit them in differently or even draw these images myself instead of simply copy pasting them.
This is the inking of the 8th page of the comic Iâve been working on. There is a total of 15 pages, so Iâm half way through the drawing process. Iâll be colouring it after.
These Are some ideas for the logo design based on my nickname, which I intend to use for my artistic personality. âPrusiaâ comes from Prusiano which is spanish for Prussian. The nickname was given to me by my unkle when I was a kid, as I would get angry and heâd compare my anger as that one of a Prussian soldier. Iâve tried to merge the characteristic prussian helmet with an artistâs tool, in this case it is a pencil, but there are other examples where I have used a penâs nib. However, the latter doesnât work that well visually, I think because it looks to similar to the original helmetâs design, and consequently harder to read as a visual metaphor.
In this post I am showing the final pages, inked and with the lettering in them.
Above is the first page, which is probably the one which has turned out the best. However, I was still worried the two main characters are a bit lost among all that detail.Â
Note that I didnât want to make it obvious it was earth the planet they were traveling to. This is because I believe the story would work better if this was revealed at the end as a twist, even if being a cliche.
2nd PAGE
This page didnât turn out that bad either, although Iâm unsure the motion of the spaceship landing is clear enough.Â
Also, the lettering is quite small in the final version. Unfortunately I couldnât do much better with the amount of text provided by the script and the restrictions in size.
In this section Iâm gonna talk about the process of lettering, both for title, narration boxes and speech bubbles.
For the design of the logo I wanted to mix futurism with ancient times, thatâs why I chose a medieval type and thought that by putting in perspective itâd get some sort of star wars vibes.
These are some sketches playing around with different fonts and changing the vanishing point as well.
For the narration boxes I wanted to keep that feel of an ancient time, and thought the scroll would help adding that look to it. It was a struggle to fit all the text in the space that I had initially left for the narration boxes at first.
Also, the first two where inked with the brush pen, which is definitely the right tool for lettering as it works well with curved shapes but it is quite difficult to get a straight line with it...
...So I eventually decided to move over to the fountain pen, which I found extremely easier to write with. It was quicker and neater, a clear example of how important it is to choose the right tool for each task.
For the speech bubbles I wanted the text to feel somewhat futuristic, electronic, but at the same time I wanted it to have an organic feel to it. First of all cause the humanoids arenât robots, but also cause they are quite funny and naive.
I drew them on acetate with white gouache and brush pen.
these are some of the earlier studies for the spaceship design. As described in the script it had to be triangular and boxy.
The final design, though, ended up being a pyramidal shaped spaceship, both because it was suggested by the script, as in the last page the natives build a pyramid, and because itâd suit better the cartoony style of the characters.
GADGETS DESIGN
In their trip to earth, the humanoids use different gear to collect and analyse data from the planetâs properties, in order to conclude whether itâd be potentially possible to live in there for them.
After the storyboard I did some character designs, trying to stick to the brief but still giving each character an individual different look. Humanoid 1 is sensible and nervous, whereas Humanoid 2 is bold and confident.
ABORIGINALS DESIGNS
I played around with shapes and tried to give a variety of designs for the locals. I used the Life of Brian as a starting point for the design, as suggested by the writer.
This semester Iâve tried to go ahead of the deadline and get things finished on time. Therefore, for the Comichaus project I started straightaway with the storyboard before doing any development work.
The giant steam powered robot that shoots highly pressured water through his mouth (which he gathers in a bag below his jaw). It resembles the Kingâs body type, who will climb on top of him to drive it down the tower on his attempt to kill the rebels who were trying to steal his water.
Lizard Rebel two. He is arrogant, lazy and clumsy. He gets distracted very easily and is the reason why their mission doesnât go as planned. However, he has a good sense of humor and cheers the commander up.
Lizard Rebel one. She is a bearded lizard, comander of the ship that flies over to the tower city where the Monarchs keep all the water for themselves. Witty, wise and stubborn, she is the only reason the manage to get alive from their mission.
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