Occultatum Comix

Seren, also known as UndeadSwine. Comic artist, illustrator and tired zombie. Producing a supernatural themed comic to be sold at London MCM in May 2018.

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Screenprinted tote bag with Occultatum Comix logo

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Japanese stab binding sketchbook

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sketching WW1 gun (Lee-Enfield rifle) as practise weaponry is something I enjoy drawing, but I struggle often with, so I find drawing a thing over and over really helps

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initial sketches and (mostly) final cover design for Night Side: Verbinden

decided on a name a few weeks ago! verbinden is the German word for connect, linking into the themes of these two befriending each other

Due to the heavy amounts of blood and gore on a few later pages, I decided to give this comic a teen rating, just to play it safe.

mostly final, as I may tweak the fonts used but I’m overall happy

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character sheet for David ‘Dai’ Price

a postman from Wales, enlisted with the British Army and deployed to France. Was shot and killed during a charge across No Man’s Land, coming back as a ghost. He’s a ‘wandering’ one, noted by his grey washed out colours but bright eyes (second image). Ghosts mainly find themselves sticking around until their physical body is shown proper rites (a burial, cremation, ect), but Dai’s is never recovered, leaving him stuck and unable to move on. He manages to stick around with his platoon until they go back to Wales, where he spends most of his time watching over his daughter as she grows up.

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Gnoll Memorial Gates in Neath, where the latter parts of my comic takes place

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Perspective and panel layouts practise

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Class task about staging in panels

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character sheet for Andreas Dietrich A former farm labourer, enlisted into the German army into the First World War, leaving behind his wife and young daughter. Abandoned his post due to growing sick of the horrors of the war, a series of events which led to him becoming a vampire...

First design is his soldier uniform, second being his casual outfit later on in the 70s. Also included a few little sketches, expressions and a little facts.

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some costume research

first is Dai’s outfit, a British soldier uniform (as well as a British officers uniform)

second and third are Andreas’ outfits, the first being German soldier uniform (with an officers uniform also) and the second being his outfit during the parts set in the 1970s. He dresses very smart and has a duster jacket, looking very suave.

Also included some colour palettes. The most options came for the 70s outfit due to the variety. The 70s were known for rather garish colours, but Andreas is a far more subdued man in his fashion, so I think the most hint of colour will be a light blue shirt and dark blue jumper (or similar colour combination), whilst the rest would be browns or blacks/greys.

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One of the most fascinating parts of history to me in the Christmas Truce that occurred in 1914, during the First World War. The whole idea of this event is what inspired me to create Dai as a character in the first place. The beginning of my comic is set on Christmas Day 1914, where Andreas and Dai run into each other and discuss their lives back home.

I mentioned on Facebook that part of my story would be set during WW1, and my brother linked me to the YouTube channel The Great War, a channel dedicated to documenting the events of WW1. Having already watched a few videos, I already know this will provide a great resource to me throughout this project.

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an introduction of sorts

the comic I’ll be producing (as of yet untitled - look forward to that brainstorming post) is about two men, Andreas Dietrich, a German who worked in the countryside, and David ‘Dai’ Price, a Welsh postman, and the unlikely friendship they formed on Christmas Day 1914. They later run into each other in 1977, in the small Welsh town Dai once called home. Andreas hasn’t aged a day as a series of events led to him being turned into a vampire. Dai is now a wandering ghost, unable to move on.

Above is one of the first (and only, until this point) sketches I ever did of Dai when I first thought him up, from around two years ago. The second image is the designs I’m likely going with for this story, although things may change a little along the way.

Andreas has been a character of mine for several years now, having gone through maaany changes. In the more modern settings of my work, he’s the ever-suffering boss of my main four characters. 

[art from a comic I produced in 2016 for my Foundation Art & Design project - whoo boy have I come a long way in making comics since then]

Fun fact - I used actors Rhodri Meilir and Ben Crawford as a sort of ‘facial inspiration’ to get them to look different

Dai has a longer, slimmer face whilst Andreas a more square and stocky one. I notice sometimes I seem to only really have about four or five faces that I draw, so sometimes it’s important to look for some real life people to take inspiration from (even if it’s just slightly). I’ll aim to show this in their body types especially when I finalise their character sheets.