MARCEL O'LEARY

I'm an illustrator, comic author and storyboard artist who lives in Angoulême, France. I'm currently working on my graphic novel project, The Sea of Frozen Words. Email: marcelolearyart [at] gmail [dot] com

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Alltta (20SYL & Mr. J. Medeiros), La Nef par Marcel O’Leary

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These were a lot of fun to make.  I can’t wait to go to La Nef again.  Thanks Alice!

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These guys are part of a group of soldiers commissioned by Dryden for his expedition to the north.  But it’s a job they’re not comfortable with.  Many of the soldiers come from countries colonised by Arimaspia, and the idea of stealing from a culture just like what has happened to their own leaves a bitter taste in their mouth.  But they’re paid to take orders, what can they do about it?

DeWitt’s design, the white guy, is going to change in the final book.  I like that the design is a greasy/ weaselly version of Michael Caine circa Get Carter, but the book is much better when he is an immigrant from a colonised country like a lot of the others. 

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This person is a Cloud Rider, one of the religious warriors from the region Nephele Bata.  Their world isn’t really explored that much in my current book, but I really hope I can flesh out and explore their lives more in the future. 

While this person’s title as a Cloud Rider is an example of the extraordinary skills they have in life, it’s a double edged sword, and also shows how aloof they’re considered from the rest of their community.

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Meet Valerie and Lucas, Dryden’s children.  Guess which one gets to do what they want, and guess which one doesn’t.

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Baronet William Dryden.  He isn’t the owner of the ship that Emmi is travelling on, but he may as well be.  He’s travelling to a country in the sea of frozen words to ‘protect’ local art and culture, by taking it back to his own country.  He is travelling with his two children, and a group of mercenaries to help him with his endeavour.

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This is Emmi’s Grandfather, from the comic I’m making.  He’s travelling with her while she looks for her dad.  He’s someone who cares a lot, but generally finds it difficult to be open about himself. 

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This is Emmi, the main character of The Sea of Frozen Words. 

The sea of frozen words is a place in winter, noises are frozen into small coloured spheres like boiled sweets or candy.  When they melt, you can hear the words or noise again.

Emmi has a box with a frozen word, given to her by her father.  As curious as she is, she’s never wanted to melt it.

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Here’s a promo illustration I made for the comic I’m working on, The Sea of Frozen Words.  I’ve been working on it while being in residence at La Maison des Auteurs in Angoulême.  During the BD festival this year, I also had some pages on show during our group exhibition!

If things go to plan, I’ll finish it next year.  It’s been a difficult process to make so far- both because of the personal themes of the book and also my own obstacles and anxieties with making comics in general.  It’s been tough, but it’s been good to learn all of this stuff now. Thanks to the residency, I’ve had the space to at least try and find out what makes storytelling important to me.  It’s been an important experience for me.

There’s more to come!  I’ll try and post more about the project soon.

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Last one. (My favourite, I think).

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More life drawing- the model posed around a horizontal tree painted black. 

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More life drawing- some quick poses.

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These were some quick digital paintings from a life drawing class I went to over the summer for a week.  I think they were 5 or 10 minutes?  I still need to scan all of my work from it actually- maybe I’ll get off my ass and do that soon.  I love working in colour, but I’ve only really been drawing in black and white recently.  Seeing these makes me want to paint again!

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I found this little doodle of another workmate that I really wanted to share.  This was from almost a year ago now.  The light was from a digital projector, and she was giving a presentation on Text!  Ari is great.

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Some pen sketches of work colleagues from earlier in the year.  They’re all phenomenal people.  With my work, I love thinking about form and depth.  I like the solidity that sort of thing brings with it, and I usually think about that a lot.  But when I work or sketch like this, it really shows my bigger goal, which is to expressively suggest form as much as possible.  It takes a lot of confidence for me to work like that though outside of a sketchbook or life drawing.  In finished work, it’s easier for me to get nervous about it and fall back on a more considered approach, with solid linework and thinking structurally.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I really hope to balance the two ways of my thinking eventually.

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Roller Derby Character design sketches.  It was too fun to work with extreme perspective.  I try and play with that stuff whenever I remember to.

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Some old hourly comics from...February I think!  I planned them all out, but it was such an unusually busy day that I had no time to do any of it, haha!  But I’ll post it now, or I never will.

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Digital sketches for a painting commission from earlier in the year!