SDP (Your Work in Progress)

Script writing

First things first, writing the story; Luckily I bought a comic recently called 'Brink' by Dan Abnett and Ian Culbard and at the back of this comic had a exert of the script. Looking at it, I used that to help me layout and write my own script for my story.

Several days later, I got a good friend of mine to read through the script and give me feedback on what needed more work with it.

I'll avoid uploading the script here for spoilers sake ;)

Character/Monster Sketches

I picked up what I had written about the monsters and various characters and used that to help me start to visualise the monsters, I picked various inspirations of different animals and plants to help me discover what these monster would look like.

For the monsters I partially wanted to do a pass to get feedback on if they looked creepy and luckily all looked good apart from the legs of one monster (hence the post-it).

Monster sketches and designs

The final monsters designs

Character designs

Final Character designs

I'll reference the initial sketches for close-ups.

Small Research

'Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës: The Imaginary World of the Brontës' (2020), Isabel Greenberg. Harry N Abrams Inc, Dec 23, 2020.

I wanted to see if any other artists have used charcoal for graphic novels/comics before and my tutor recommended me a great illustrator called 'Isabel Greenberg', looking at her process throughout her Instagram feed I can capture just how she navigates her workflow. The drawing stages when creating her story is done in pencil and in charcoal using charcoal to highlight bold lines and with pencil to add textures and shading; from there, she takes her work into a digital program where she or someone she has worked with with go through a colourise the images-- using bold cool colours.

I like the hybrid way she works and it looks like it gives her more freedom in terms of textures and line weights-- similar to her techniques, textures to me is what I would like to see in my work; approaching my graphic novel/comic, I would like to attempt (I must experiment first) to using ink to show where I want the reader to focus on and for the charcoal to be used for effects and landscape elements. I need to see if it works by combining the two together, try charcoal pencils or willow charcoal along with the ink pen which will most likely be used with a brush pen.

'Paradise Lost' (2018) by Pablo Auladell & John Milton. Pegasus Books, Oct 10, 2018.

Another artist I came across was Pablo Auladell, he made a graphic novel called 'Paradise Lost' and is made up of charcoal, there's little narration. The designs shows white pages and contrasting black charcoal panels with glimmers of colour that are really subtle but beautifully done, the texture of that charcoal makes the story feel very dark and tense.

I love the landscape imagery in particular with this graphic novel and the integration of animal life and it's something I should take with me as I enter the experimentation stages of my work.

Experimentation

I just wanted to see how ink and charcoal go together, especially when creating focus and ambiance; I drew up the sketch below in pencil, just being really loose. From there, I went to using a charcoal pencil-- however I found that I wasn't getting the dark and textured look that I wanted, I wanted to go for the same effect as Pablo's work. I went back into it using willow charcoal and got a much better result, using it also made me feel more relaxed and less worried about perfection, wanting to focus more on mood and story than realism. After that, I use a ink pen to create focus on the makeshift den because of the sharpness, what I expect to happen is that more detail is able to be captured with the ink pen as well.

Next Stage/Reflection

Initially, I knew I wanted to achieve this goal as soon as possible, but I started to think more practical and with intent to allow my passions to unfold naturally. I've had a few therapy sessions since the start of this project and it's made me realise that I need to stop pushing myself so hard to finish things when it's a process that needs a lot of care and love-- just as I do.

This course that I enrolled into was after falling back in love with art, drawing specifically, and I got so used to putting pressure on myself to get it done quickly just because I'm getting older and working on this part-time course. Despite what people say, I shouldn't rush this, I need to take my time and work with myself to find a timeline that suits my mental well-being.

Going into the next stage of the process, I will be thumbnailing and storyboarding the script; I've bought the B4 manga paper already for when I move into the following stage of the design process.