Assignment 9: Themed Project

Brief

Whichever of the three thematic options you choose, there will be methods and approaches that will be shared. Initially there will be a period of examination of the theme itself, researching the central idea of either Place, Imagination or The Word. 

You might use mind maps, spider diagrams or rhizomatic thinking to brainstorm visual approaches and ideas for your chosen theme.

Your choice could be motivated by a desire to investigate a form or subject such as the portrait, landscape or object. Or it might be driven by a desire to work with a specific outcome like the book structure, watercolour or an animation.

So it could be a material approach like:

• Drawings, watercolours, paintings or mixed media

• Animation, moving image or photography

• Model-making or 3D

• Sculptures with moving parts

• Found objects (objets trouve)

• Collage

Here are some visual forms and subjects:

• The Portrait

• The Landscape

• The Object

• Time & Space

• Travel

• The Home

• The Future or the Past

• Dreams

• Memory

And here are some physical formats that might convey your concepts and intentions:

• A fanzine or magazine combining images and graphic design

• An illustrated story or animation

• An exploration of the book structure

• A group of posters, paintings or photographs

• A comic book or graphic novel

• A GIF, short video, or film

• A sketchbook

• A group of objects, models or sculptures

We have highlighted Drawings, watercolours, paintings or mixed media, Travel and An illustrated story or animation in red as one example of an approach that you could consider. 

Perhaps you could go on a journey, record your experiences in drawings and paintings and then order these images as a book or animated narrative.

Of course, there are still many variables to consider. You need to consider your intended audience, how you show your work to other people, and the responses or experience that might be connected to your outcomes.

Proposal

I will create my 'Dream' comic, based on a character design I made for a previous exercise, combining my love for character design, cinematography, and narratives.

I will be doing this in ink pen and digital colour because I'm quite limited by time, however I see it as an opportunity to get in the mind of a comic artist.

Mood Board

Mind-map

Research

I wanted to really hone in on my skills and apply skills that a comic artist would apply, so I wanted to do some research before hand. My problem in my art is colour and lighting, so I wanted to look up the best way to do colour.

To get in the shoes of a comic artist, with colour you first have to start off with laying down the flat colours, starting with the background first and then your foreground-- by laying down the background first, you're not giving yourself a blank canvas and you can get a better idea of what colours you're laying down and how they react to each other.

After laying down the flats, you'll move onto capturing the 'form' of your scenes, mainly focusing on capturing the style of the comic whether if it's using airbrush for your changing colours or textured brushes. Moving from that, you'll focus on the background, it's ideal for the background not to blend with the foreground so maybe adding a less saturated colour over the top with a blend layer would help-- or reducing the ink work saturation.

Lighting with colour can be easy, by using the same colour as the light you can get really effective highlights for quick colour and using textured brushes again is better, or you might get the superhero airbrush style.

If you have light in the comic visible, apply a touch of colour around that light with a blend mode of either colour dodge or screen, you can create a really nice pop of light.

Somethings I have to bear in mind is that, when something is really saturated it'll be seen first before the the darker areas, so if I have something really important to show then I must make sure it's nice and saturated to get the viewers attention. 1

As I researched further I found a great video on understanding colour in comics and what new artists should know, and I found a really helpful tip that I will apply to my work. Applying colour to the inks, the black inks make it difficult to see variations of colour, therefore when you colour the inks a lighter colour, maybe with some local colour, your work feels lighter and overall feels more cohesive.

Another helpful tip, is to use more punchy colours, using brighter and more saturated colours then applying the shadows can really make the comic stand out on the page, using it in small increments is better since it'll become part of the colour palette and throw off your whole colour palette. 2

While researching further, I found a great artist that spoke extensively about speech bubbles and text, teaching me ways of using speech bubbles more effectively and creatively. Playing with the shape of the bubble or what is around the speech bubble, with this knowledge I could really play with different scenes and the interactivity with speech bubbles. 3

Lastly, I wanted to do a little research on drawing fight scenes since I have a few ideas for what I want to go for and to push myself anatomy wise. A few tips I learnt from watching the great David Finch, is that to create an effective fight, you have to create the impact after the actual hit, by having the enemy already turned and the fist already past making contact, you see the brutality of the punch without having to see every movement of the action.

Also, make sure the movement makes sense, that every moment is true to what would happen, going along with the movement and impact will make more sense and have a better impact.

A really good tip for anatomy and the action scenes is viewing the chest as a sack of potatoes or a pillow case, seeing how the to half of the body bends and twists can make it easier to create fight scenes (and people in general).

On the last note, I wanted to keep note of a tip I want to try out for the comic, and that's using a silhouette of the action to capture the scene. It makes it easier to draw without it feeling like nothing is going on. 4

Front Cover Research

I wanted to research a little about comic book covers and how to effective create the cover with great composition.

You can have multiple interactions with what should be on the comic cover, whether you want the character, a location, an object or multiple panels for the cover. Playing with how those things make it on the cover can come down to either simple compositions (straight on), and or inverting the lighting to create a more impact with high contrast.

You can also play with the dimensions of your subject by either foreshortening or using 'roundel', to attract your eye in a more dynamic way. Experimenting with different 'camera' angles if another good way of coming up with your composition, depending on the mood of the subject or important storytelling elements.

Multiple point-of-views can be another way of creating a front cover, if you have an important scene that lead to the next comic you are creating, maybe create recognition and apply what you used previously as the front cover.

Experimenting is important when you're creating a comic book cover, interacting with different story elements, characters, props and locations. Combining with different angles and styles of the page alongside those can make for some really interesting comic book covers. 5

Characters

Process

Firstly, I wrote a little script and actions to reference by for sketching and thumb-nailing.

From there I created some side characters, I really needed a basis of what the characters would like to avoid myself getting lots in the thumb-nailing and sketching phase.

Onto the thumb-nailing stage, this has alterations since I made some changes as I went along, these changes were to create a better flow and keep track of the basic compositions.

Once sketched and inked in physical form, using a brush ink pen to create the ink work. I then scanned them and uploaded them to procreate. From there (with thanks to my research), I started off putting flat colours in capturing the basic colours without shadows and highlights. After, I created another layer just for the shadows and used a variety of digital brushes to create different textures. I then changed the layer blend mode to multiply and reduced the visibility to get a nice shadow effect.

Moving from the shadows, I added a slight highlight to different areas since I had quite broad strokes. To create more harmony, I applied a full flat local colour over to the top of it all and used blend mode 'overlay' to create more appeal. For the textured look, I added a grey layer and added 'noise' to create an overall textured look.

Lastly, to make the ink softer and not completely black, I used a gradient map to soften the lines using local colours again.

Front Cover + Name

I wanted to quick sketch up some thumbnails for a front cover, I really wanted to capture all the three main characters and reference the last few panels with the setting, so a forest setting is ideal, maybe some magical element involved to.

Process of front cover

Final Work

Evaluation

The aim of this assignment was to pick one of three subjects and create something with that theme in mind, you could either have 'A Place', 'Imagination' or 'The Word'. I wanted to really challenge myself and make up for my poor performance on my previous assignments, and so I went for 'The Word', I really wanted to create a full comic book and so after looking at my previous character designs I wanted to incorporate those into a story.

I wrote up a script, thumb-nailed, sketched,inked and digitally coloured in the work, then going in with lettering the piece; after all that I created the front and back cover to complete it.

I was really inspired by Narnia movies and playing fantasy video games that I wanted to explore the realm that I created from the concept design exercise. I wanted to include a fight scene and experiment using ink and digital.

The sketching phase was the longest but most rewarding and I could really see my skills paying off slightly, and when it came to inking the pages I found myself spending hours at a time-- enjoying every moment. I found myself getting familiar with the brush pen, using the pen in a certain way to get thin and thick lines.

After hours of sketching and inking two pages at a time, I went into digital, I knew that I wanted to differentiate the exterior and interior, so I kept the outside slightly cool with the sunset and the inside with warmer tones. I feel like by apply colour on the overall page and using a blend really helped with quickly capturing the tones I wanted, and using the darker multiply blend mode really contributed to getting simpler and easier shadows.

To get the colour palette I wanted, I knew that outside I wanted this the clay look of the buildings, since I had an idea that if I were ever to make another comic the setting for each town would slightly change in temperature to easily understand that they're in different places or revisiting another.

I disliked the flat, bland, texture-less result after my first page, and revisited my research on how to avoid that, and remembered that I could add a layer of 'noise' along with a blend mode 'soft light' to create some really interesting texture.

My opinion on the overall result of the comic is that I am extremely happy with it, there are some panels where I just want to sit and stare at it all day. It's probably a bit gore-y and has too much swearing, and has some cringe writing in it. But it has given me my confidence back.

The last few pages are probably a bit too rushed since I was really worried about getting this done in 4 weeks alongside recording my critical review, but at least I know for next time that I should take my time and plan my time more equally.

Looking back, my work isn't similar to my mood board but I hope one day I can get to their level or art and comic design.

Moving from this assignment and reading ahead when I shouldn't, I think for the next assignment I will explore traditional mediums (which I say every time, but I really hope I mean it this time), and I would like to explore a different physical format-- maybe a children's book or something with text and imagery.

Honorable Mentions

I wanted to highlight the panels where I stop all day and stare. Enjoy...

References

1 J.Holt the illustrator, YouTube 'How to Color a Comic | Methods and Tips for Digital Artists', Dec 4, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZ48e825ZU&list=LL&index=1 Accessed July 24th, 2024.

2 J.Holt the illustrator, YouTube 'What New Comic Artists Should Know About Color', Nov 24, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SppinYid-1s&list=LL&index=2 Accessed July 24th, 2024.

3 Bad Ink Studios, TikTok 'BadInkStudios Page' U/A. https://www.tiktok.com/@badinkstudios?lang=en Accessed July 24th 2024.

4 David Finch, YouTube 'Fight Scenes For Comics', Aug 4, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE_Cbm0aT3Q&list=LL&index=6 Accessed July 24th 2024.

5 U/A, Clip Studio/Art Rocket 'How to Draw Comic Covers', U/A. https://www.clipstudio.net/how-to-draw/archives/162410#:~:text=The%20composition%20includes%20three%20main,lines%20also%20separate%20each%20character. Accessed 24th July 2024.