Styles

Experimenting with a Different style 

Here I drew my main character in a different and more cartoony style, where the head is larger and the body is shorter. I wanted to experiment with this style as it is the style that most modern cartoons use, I am overall very happy with end result but I would prefer the head to be a little smaller.

The pictures above show my process on how I create and illustration, first I sketch the pose and the character, then I ink the sketch on a new layer, next I erase the sketch layer and on the same layer do the flat colours, Finally I do the shading and lighting on to separate layers using Multiply layer and overlay layer.

Character design

 Character Design Process

The first part about creating a character is having a concept, for an example I wanted to created a siren for one of my comics. You could also create characters using prompts or you could creat olls wear people could vote on what character you make, these are solution I sometimes use if I dont have any ideas for characters.

Once I have an idea I have to decide what kind of character they are going to be:

 Age: 25

Gender: Boy or Girl

Species: Human or Creature

Skin colour: Dark or Light

Height: Tall or Short

Personality: Good or Evil

Hair: Natural or Dyed

Concepts for the character

More concepts

Final design sketch

To create my characters I use a sketchbook and just start sketch and writing down concepts for the character, I write down the main themes of the character on the top of the page to help me remember. Most of my sketches are done in pen s that is what I am most comfortable with, first I like to design the face, what kind of face shape they have and what there eyes look like. Then I like to design the hair, after the face and hair is designed I like to draw small fully body sketches to see what the rest of the character looks like and what there clothes might be. For the clothes I love them to refect the personality of the character and since this character was going to be evil I thought a leather jacket would show that.

While doing the concept sketches I look up reference pictures to help me draw some of the aspects of the character:

 

( I didnt use many refs this time )


Once I have the final concept I digitally draw it in the program Clip Studio Paint, first I draw the sketch, which is the basic layout for the pose and I usally draw the basic sketch very small and inlarge it, I do this so I dont get restricted by the endges of the canvas.

Once the sketch is finshed and inlarged I create another layer and draw over the sketch to create an ink effect, doing this smooths out the rough lines and makes things alot cleaner.

After the inking is finished I erase the sketch and use the layer it was on for the colour, I choos the colours for the characters all in my head but if something doesent look the way I wanted to I can always change it.

Finally when the flat colours are all added I added graidents and highlights wear need and turn the ink layer into a muiltply layer to make every look better, last I add a small background.

Sketch

Ink

Full Colour

FMP- Animatic Research

Example of a animatic frame

An animatic is a idea for a film or TV show that is created using storyborads and a sound track. They are used as tests for animations and films to determine if the scene is effective in what it is trying to tell. Once and aniamtic is apporvered it is usally sent over to an animation of film department so they
can get to work on creating the completed scene.

The frames within an animatic are very simple and sometimes only use stick men as long as it shows a story and the right atmost fear in that scene then it dosesnt matter how simple the drawings our. However some animatic that our used in pitches for shows or films can be and tend to be of a higher quality.

I wanted to create an animate because it was something I had not tried yet, the amout of frames required would be considably less than a full animation and considering I did not have much time left I thought I would be a good idea. I have alwasy like animatics, as you can tell a story by only using a few pictures I thought it would be a good experiment to work on my story telling and camrea angles.

My Finished Animatic

Inspiration for creating an Animatic were:
- Art of Rhues https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ1XveFdAWCBlV07Ra6K1og

This artist makes some amazing Animatics and she turns rought animatics in to full coloured animatics, she had simple and yet beautiful style. Most of her work is fan animatics or aniamtic based of songs or TV and somtimes its combination of the two. The backgrounds in animatics are usallly more detailed than the characters them selves and the background may not change for seval frames. I loved how she took very rough Animatics and made them cleaner and even adding a bit of colour and effects which is what I wanted to do.

Examples of her work:

Screen shot from Animatic

Rough and final Animatic screen shot

Cover for an Animatic

Rough Screen shot

FMP- Research and inspirations

History of comic books

The earliest known comic book was the Adventure of Obadiah Oldbuck which was published in Europe in 1837.

https://www.illustrationhistory.org/genres/comics-comic-books

The Golden Age 

1938-1956

It began with the debut of Superman in action comics, and when Batman started in Detective comics almost a year later. October 1939 Marvel comics released Marvel comic* 1. Through 1938-1940s was the years when comic book stayed to Gai there popularity.

The Dark Age 

1985-1996

To commemorate DC comic 50th Anniversary they published Crisis on Infinite Planets as a 12 issue comic book event. From the mid 80s Anti heroes became extremely popular people enjoyed dark pessimistic stories, so Alan Moore wrote the watchmen which was set in a world where every one looked down on superheroes. The dark ages ends with a sales slump, this sale slumps also contribituted to the bankruptcy of Marvel comics.

 The Modern Age 

1996-Present

Alex Ross published Kingdom come which helped to bring the optimism and strength of the olden days of comics. Comic companies strived to fix there mistakes and put more effect into fewer projects . The adaptation into digital comics, movies and television has help the popularity of comic grow.


Inspiration and Research for the project

The project idea was created by combining to different sets of characters and making world and story to go around them. From there we looked at things relating to the project that we wanted to create for our inspiration, since we planned to created a motion comic we looked a other comics that we enjoyed and related to our story.

The art style was inspired from many different comics that I grow up reading such as:
- The Amazing Spiderman ( Marvel) 
- Lalins Curse ( Webtoon )
- Lumine ( Emma Krogell )
- X- Men ( Marvel)

The style used in the Marvel comics and other classic comics use a very bold line art which I liked the style of. The background design and colour I love in Lalins Curse, as the backgrounds are so detailed and yet so simple. But many of the characters styles were inspired by TV shows that I grow up with, giving the characters larger more expressive eyes was inspired by many animated shows such as:
- Star vs the forces of evil ( Disney )
- Amphibia ( Disney )
- Milo Murphy's law ( Disney )
All these shows have characters with very expressive faces and large eyes, I love that style as it gives me more opportunities to draw more emotions in my characters.

My two characters were inspired from:
- Lalins Curse 
- Danny Phantom



The main character of Lalins curse, David, has a very frighted personality which I wanted to mirror in my main character. I love creating characters with a lot of flaws so as the story progress they do to, So  I made my character Quinn who is a very socially awkward person that doesn't enjoy being around other people, but is soon thrown into Abnormal world that might help him be more confident.
My other character, Violet was inspired by a character from Danny Phantom, Sam, who is a very confident and out going person who is a goth, I thought this out going personality would perfectly contrast Quinn quiet nature ( and I also made her a goth because of Sam ).

Maria characters personalities were inspired from things she grew up with:
- Wolf's Rain 
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer



She loves the characters from these to shows and wanted to have her character act similarly. Maria took inspiration from Wolf's Rain to create a wolf character using the style from that show, which helped her design a wolf character with more accurate features. She was inspired by a character in Buffy the Vampire slayer, Spike, whose personality is an intelligent fighter who is cocky and mean to everyone, Maria wanted to make a character similar to spike by making Axelot who is a very cold person who is mean to everyone. Maria then wanted to created a character with and opposite personality to Axelot so she created Alex, who contrasts Axelot's very cold personality with a very bubbly and friendly personality, and she really like the dynamic between these to.

Reference images

Page from Lalins Curse

The art used in lalins curse is amazing the line art is simple and lets the colours are so vibrant and alive. All of the pages in the comic have an effect over the colour giving it a texture to make it look like page and not to flat and clean, I love this technique and hope to use it in my own work.

So of the backgrounds don even use linear they just have flat colours which can be very effective if don correctly, for example the leaves in the top right panel are created with many different shades and tones of the same colour, with a lighter and more pastel colour at the back and a more harsh and bolder colour at the front which has a really cool effect that I love.

I love the colours used in the sky as they are just so vibrant but also look like a real sky. There are so Manny different tones and colours used in the sky to give off a very warm effect for the sunset.

Wolf from Lumine

Lumine has some very interesting character design of wolves using a very stylised and realistic style.

This character was a good reference for a wolf in a comic style as one of the characters would be a wolf, and the comic showed me a lot about wolf anatomy and I love the thin lines used in the line art.

Star ( Disney )

Star vs the Force of Evil had a style very similar to my own, characters with simple faces and large expressive eyes. This style was a good reference for my own style as a love characters and style with large eyes as it helps me give my characters more emotion and expressive faces.

I love the simpleness in the design by with elements in the design that make each character unique. Designing characters with clothes that match there personality is very important to my, and star design shows her personality also. Her dress shows that she is royalty but it is a lot more casual just like her, the star bag shows that she girly and bubbly, and her horns on her head instead of a crown show that she is rebellious.

All my characters that I design must have clothes that match there personality.

Spike ( Buffy Comic )

Maria love the character of Spike from Buffy and the Vampire slayer, she really like his personality and how he interacts with the other characters. Spike has a very rebellious and evil personality, he is fighter and loves violence and any opportunity to fight.

Maria wanted to create a character very similar to Spike, so Axelot was created. He is very rebellious and had a cold personality and rarely ares about anyone. Spikes design was also an inspiration to Maria for Axelot's clothes, Spike wheres very baggy and casual clothes and docent seem to care much about his appearance. Just like Spike, Axelot wears very baggy clothes and doesn't care much about his appearance, he wears dark denim jeans and a baggy black hoodie.

Amphibia Cover ( Disney )

Amphibia is a new upcoming Disney show, which tells the story of Anne of gets stuck in another world Populated by frog people.

I already love the style used in the show, again the characters have very large expressive eyes and the style seems different from other shows which I always a good thing. 


The background design in some of the concept art looked really detailed and interesting, it shows really unique elements that help build the world of the show which is something I wish I could improve on.

Sam ( Danny Phantom )

One of the protagonists from Danny Phantom was a huge inspiration for me, I love goth fashion and had always wanted to create a character that was goth. Sam ( Danny Phantom ) she is a very bossy, passionate and strong willed person, she labels her self as a goth as an outlet for her independence and individuality.

With this in mind in wanted to create a very confident and strong willed person, who love the typical goth fashion and uses to show her interest in the strange and Abnormal. My character is Violet, she has long dark brown hair and light brown skin, she wears a long black dress with a zip and rip leggings and black boots.

The look of my character was inspired by typical goth fashion and the character of Sam of also has big black boots.

FMP- Abnormals Comic Process (Completed)

The Animated Comic Process

First I start by drawing simple sketches of the page layouts, these sketches are done in a sketch book and are all very small. They are just used and as small blueprint to see what layout the page will have, and I usually only to one or two for each page as I don't like to over think it.

Scanned page from sketchbook

A problem faced when creating the comic was I work better in the program Clip Studio Paint but the computers at college don't have the program so to make the comics line art look smoother I scanned the pages in to the program so when the colouring was done I could easily send it to Maria to Animated.

The next part is the draw one page on a A4 piece of paper. First I sketch the page, then I go over the rough sketch lines with ink to make the lines bolder and more noticeable. Once the inking is done I scan the page on to the computer.

Scanned finished page

Once the page is on the computer I put the scanned image in to photoshop. From there I turn the page layer into a multiple layer and add another layer under the page layer. Next I do the background colour on one layer, after the background I make another layer and colour the people. Next I make another layer above all the colour layers and make it into a multiple layer and I use a light purple for the shading, after I make another above the shading and make it into a overlay layer and I used a golden yellow for the lighting. Finally I add the text above the page layer, once all the words are added I make one more layer for the white of the speech bubble.

Finished coloured page

After the page is completely coloured I send the photoshop file to Maria Who will the Animate the page.

Random Art