BIXIE (BEATRIX) CHARACTER DESIGN

 I did this sheet on Bristol A4 with a pen nib and filled in the blacks with a brush.

Shading with PROMARKER:

I already had this character and I felt it fitted with the script I whipped together yesterday. 

Armed with those sketches I sketched out some poses in red pencil and cleaned up with a HB pencil.

I then did the linear with a pen nib:

Then did the blacks with a brush..this is an area I'm really not good at, it'll be something I hope to get better at:

Erased the pencils for clean linear:

And the Pro Markers pass (I used 2 shades)

ROADTRIP : SIXPACK SCRIPT

 So spent all of yesterday writing a full script for a comic book idea. I have a lot of story ideas lying around, but because I just want to do this for fun. I worked from a new idea, something light and crazy, so there's not much weight on it. I can just focus on "learning" instead of trying to get things right and thinking about a final product.

The IDEA (The spark) : "What if you saw a Sixpack of beer lying in the middle of nowhere in the desert.?"

So that was my starting point, that simple.

- There's a mystery: what is it doing in the middle of the desert? Is it an illusion, a trap to lure them, somebody drop it?

- It gives my characters a goal! And it's silly :D. What does anybody usually look for in the desert? HYDRATION (WATER). But not my characters, they want BEER! 

So I just walked the path of the story in my head to see where it would end out, I thumbnail out some pages, brainstormed different scenarios and turns. Some potentially funny gags. Until I connected the dots from A (set up) -> B (the journey) -> C (resolution). 

I actually often think of how things will end these days, and that helps me then to fill in what happens. In this case I woke up with an image in my head of a tourist bus full of old people that were diving off a cliff.  Completely unconnected to the story, but it somehow gave me the idea for the ending. 

I didn't actually intend to write a script, but I quickly realised I wouldn't be able to thumbnail out my pages, if I didn't have all the beats laid out first. And it's much faster to type some words than redrawing pages of thumbnails. I guess a different approach could've been to use David Lynch's technique, where you write down a scene on a cue card, and another on another card, etc... and then you can rearrange these card into a story.  

But I decided to type out my story! Of course I have no experience writing scripts and especially my dialogue makes me cringe myself. But we all have to start somewhere right, in the name of fun! :D It ended up being an 18 page script, so hopefully it will translate to a 22 ish page comic.  (below just a random segment that doesn't reveal too much :P). 

Although I later noticed I kept mixing up my character names.. calling BIXIE (short for Beatrix) TRIX.  Anyway on to the next phase! Which is the hard work :P

Return to Purgatory

 I am kind of developing ideas for 3 different stories at the same time...not smart, but they all call to me, what can you do!

CHALLENGE: Draw a comic page... TODAY!

So today I decided to challenge myself to draw comic page. No planning, or overthinking, just draw one and focus on getting it done as practice.

IDEA: So the idea I had was that when you wake up in the morning with lots to do, my impulse is to go for coffee and go into overdrive mode, but often the opposite is a better approach. Just wake up, have a pint of water and sit down for a 10 minute meditation session before you do anything else. 

Characters: I just picked 2 existing  characters I had drawn before for other ideas.

Location: Just set it in my home space -> No need for research / reference. 

STEP 1: THUMBNAILS

All I knew was that I wanted the final image to be the 2 characters meditating peacefully..

STEP 2: PENCILS.

Unfortunately I really didn't have a good grasp on the characters, I also weirdly broke the left to right reading order in the 3rd row. It really doesn't work. I did decide that the last panel should be an open frame, so no borders. Because the characters are meditating, and so they can breathe beyond the borders of a panel. 

STEP 3: PANEL BORDERS + TEXT.

I think I read somewhere that you do those first..

STEP 4: INKS!

With the loose pencils, I had to make things up as I went along, not a great decision but it means I could keep up the tempo.

STEP 5: ERASE and DONE!

And so I completed a page today! I have procrastinated for years over doing a comic page, so finally ripped the band aid off :P The page itself will probably end up in the bin, but it served a purpose! I proved to myself I can do a comic, and yes it will suck..but do it enough times and it will get better :)

I hope anybody out there who ever thinks of doing a comic, takes some inspiration from this. Get your first page today, don't think about what you're doing too much, just focus on finishing and look forward to another one :)

Comic Project : Character Art - Girl Kid

 

Comic Project : Character Art - Older Woman

Not sure I feel this character yet, but moving along.

 

Comic Project : Character Art - Mysterious Woman

So I'm using an older design that I didn't use for anything as an extra character in this comic project. It's just a concept, but gotta keep moving. 2 more characters to get through :D

 

Comic Project : Character Art - Iguana

 

Here's a sheet with the Iguana, still in concept phase. I thought I could get by drawing it without understanding Iguana anatomy but I will definitely need to figure out how the arms work :P 

The poses at the bottom are more simplified which is probably what I'll stick to.

Some grey tone:

Comic Project : Character Art - Main Character

Another try at the character, at least getting out some terrible drawing before starting the comic :P

Comic Project : Character Art

I don't really like this design / style yet. But here was an attempt at making something like a character sheet for one of the characters.

Comic Project: Figuring out heads

So one of the things that happens when you're a storyboard artist is:

1- I mostly draw digital, so my drawings on paper look terrible :P

2- We change styles to suit the show we're on, and you end out forgetting how you draw on your own stuff :P 

So trying to figure out what style of heads I'll be drawing for the comic book project. I think mostly I'll leave the figuring out on the actual comic pages, Ince it's all just for practice and learning.