hey guys

i need some help please!

i need to figure out whether to use colours to fill outlines like this..

or keep all lines black like this...

or to completely go against everything i believe in and combine the two?

this is bells father by the way. i've decided against the normal 18th century dress, i've done it so often and i just wanted to draw a completely different era. so this is pre ww1. it's a pilots outfit. mmmmhmm

and i know it's really scrappy and badly coloured and whatever, but it's just a draft until i figure out the best way to do the silly outlines!

Welcome to my world for the moment

Its been a while since I posted anything on ink soup but this is to generally give you an idea of exactly what sort of world and style I am going with for my practice. I want to have a blend of realistic environments people and situations contested by cartoon elements and characters. Essentially a Roger Rabbit sort of universe with the distorted architecture of Cool world but each area will be different to the last.

This is a rough digital drawing I did combining elements of the secondary photograph (I will try and do my own for the projects) with the characterized objects and figures in the composition this also will help in my colour theory which is why photography will help make this style more practical and accurate.

Concept for devil character

New direction for the devil character, think this is much better than the cartoony version i had in the draft?

I think i like the original pencil sketch i did of this better than the finished version. ho hum!

Beauty & the Beast final draft

Hey guys,

In the spirit of community critique and all that jazz here is the final draft of my piece for Beauty & the Beast.

The drawing is pretty rough as I was concentrating on getting the narrative pace, plot clarity, frame comp, etc rather than the aesthetic.

I am pretty happy with it so far, Couple of things I will change - firstly on page 2 the top two frames , Firstly frame 2 is not clear enough - it is supposed to be the candles flaring and filling the room with smoke, secondly i dont think it is clear that the boy is causing the candles to flair - there is not a strong causal link (i was thinking of having the boy clicking his fingers?)

From here I plan to develop the aesthetic with particular focus on characterisation - I want to make the priest more creepy looking (i was thinking hook nose and pointy chin like the old punch & judy puppets) The boy needs to be cuter and more innocent at the start to emphasise the transition and major one is the devil as he is massively cheesy!

Anyway - THIS IS HERE FOR CRIT!!! please don't just tell me it's nice! constructive feedback please.

Panna a netvor.

The Czech version of "Beauty and the Beast" - dark, poetic, and subtitled. It's all on youtube if you're patient enough to click on the next part every ten minutes or so :)

Ideation

After last week's meet up, I pretty much just kept going in the same direction. Character concepts, areas of focus and narrative.

This was a little side project, Mostly looking at action-to-action sequences and expressions, following Eisner's chapter of expressive anatomy. Also, when possible, this will be a perfect piece of work to experiment with finishing styles on.

These were some quick character concepts, focussing more on the juxtaposition of the two characters, further edifying the idea of Beauty and the Beast. Personally I'm not really happy with the scientist - I'm planning on doing more sketches until I feel comfortable with the design as a whole, whereas the assymmetric design of the monster i'm far happier with.

Unfortunately, I have work all of this week (foolishly assuming that a bit of extra work could accomodate the cost of books, art supplies and cider), which I will intersperse with reading the rest of Eisner's and McCloud's books.I also have a brief narrative sketched out, with this week being spent on transferring this into an actual panel to panel script, with A5 communicative drafts supporting it.

Also: Chiu wanted to see these... They're something a guy working for Disney threw together, identifying some common errors that crop up in sequential art, so... Enjoy!

Beauty and the Beast

Here is my first attempt at a comic for this issue's Ink Soup! Any comments are welcome! Thanks.

Grzegorz Rosinski

Grzegorz Rosinski - Lames de fond from Libertago Ltd. on Vimeo.

Mr Wonderful - by Daniel Clowes

Mr Wonderful , an ironic title with its narrative about a man who is by all observations shy, neurotic, and like many self-examinations of "post-modern" american life, unable to amount to what he would liek to be.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/magazine/funnypagesClowes.html

Enki Bilal, dessinateur de bandes dessinées

fans of Enki Bilal interview on his new book romeo and juilet (in french) 

Another Graphic Novel competition, but for many more pages

http://www.myriadeditions.com/First%20Graphic%20Novel%20Competition

Comics Festival 2011

Contest

Tree Time Tales

This is my finished piece for the Cheltenham competition. I think the lithography printing really paid off to give it a nice effect and printing onto watercolour paper made it easy to add colour.

cheltenham Illustration final colour test 2

I personally think the sepia scheme is stronger i tried to be less dramatic and more tonal with the colour overlay this time.

Macbeth page 1

first page in colour, i still have a lot to edit on it, abit more colour to add but it seems to be taking a lot longer to ink and colour than i thought it would.

movie page 1

Page 1 of 2, based off of Japanese film versus / ultimate versus.

This is one of the tasks I've been looking at over the holiday, i think it still needs a lot of work, but its a start, i don't think panel 3 to 4 are clear so I'll have to edit it slightly so it makes sense.

I'll upload Macbeth page 1 coloured tomorrow.

my final entry

Cheltenham Illustration final colour test

Goya was a major inspiration for the piece

The in art on this ambitious piece was very challenging trying to reinterpret the techniques of the old etching masters like Gustave Dore while giving it a personal edge.

I felt some of the finished lines looked flat or inconsistent with the design and composition but this colour dropping I did seems to hide those floors in the work and instead crate a tense surreal scene. 

see if it can work in black and white 

Gustave Dore 

It wont make sense out of context but just wondering what people think of the finishing style? I will upload my full page roughs soon + plus the general story.

Colour and inking Finishes

Following the decent outcome of my last colour test I wanted to try it again but this time on a digitally inked piece.

This is the text I have been using to create this 2-page spread

The Funny Dream

Written by Marie Birknshaw

“Well, I never!” said the turtle.

“Did you see that ostrich Fly?”

“Well, I never!” said the ostrich.

“There’s a sheep in the sky.”

“Well, I never!” said the sheep.

“Did you see that Tortoise run?”

“Well, I never!” said the Tortoise.

“There’s a mole in the sun.”

“Well, I never!” said the mole.

“Did you hear that dormouse roar?”

“Well, I never!” said the dormouse.

“What’s that there on the floor.”?

“Well, I never” said the girl

“I thought I heard a scream.”

“Well, I never” said the girl

“What a very funny dream!”

The context of the rhyme is what really made me think outside the target demographic barrier this story is aimed at. I wanted to mature this simple narrative by setting it in a challenging 

time and idea.

I decided to set the comic in the 50s and make all characters animalmophric Just because of my current interest in to the quality of Juanjo Guarnidos colours and designs in the comic series BLACKSAD.

The middle image of the first page of Blacksad volume 3 i found really eye catching with the over dosing use of sleazily mucky yellow and brown that similar scheme is   found in my experiment. 

I used a lot of the horse photos as a guideline for the running panels and also copied some of the existing compositions in to the story to aid me in my visuals.  

Also drawing horses and individual anthropomorphic characters was something I had a lot of trouble with so that’s another reason why I choose to do this quite twisted obscure story on something that’s really innocent fun.

Outcome

I feel slightly more positive about this three-coloured experiment I believe it does more justice to the period it’s parodying its not too dark or lighthearted it has the right amount of tension from my point of view. My second goal was also not to copy the oblivious Junanjos style I mean. There are connections to his work and mine but my limited palette makes this feel a lot more personal than a rip off of an existing formula.

  

What worked?

• ·      Using a digital method of inking leaves more free space and time to alter the original pencil lines and looking in to the depth and distance of characters and objects both foreground and back.
• ·      The merging of the mucky green and light orange scheme shows that vintage timeless feeling petty well.
• ·      The darker shadows display the crowded squashed scenes decently this is contrasted by the cream coloured highlights of the actual race.
• ·      The exploration of camera angles and subject to subject shots show intendancy with the characters and there horses.
• ·      I really adore the 2^nd page last panel perspective on the body and the spotlight effect
• ·      I feel most of my character designs including the background figures show action and life but also fear and excitement within the spreads.

What did not work?

• ·      Even though I stuck two three colours the colour seems to put slight more variation in the crowd scenes just does not feel as there’s a delicate consistency.
• ·      Certain thick inked lines look out of place with the rest of the focused subjects on the. panels example the roof girders and lamp on the 2^nd page last panel
• ·      The over all finish is not slick or structure so not all marks are restricted within there requested lines. 

Conclusion

This comic feels like its pushing me in to the correct path it seems that these two experiments have made me realize the importance of colour schemes in your work.

That being said I would like to continue discovering more relevant colour schemes as well as developing on my line quality.

Comic finishes tests colour

Apart from sending countless hours on creating Gustave Dore etchings for my Cheltenham submission and developing and refining my early RVJ experiments.

I have been using my time as well to explore my colour theory as others have always considered a lot of my colouring too be confusing or flat.

So to prove these individuals wrong I tried out a Photoshop tablet colour test today.

I used a really quick rough 2-page spread depicting a scene of tension for this test. 

i hope that this helps me discover what sort of atmosphere I want to show through the use of three or five colours.

Here are the results

Test 1

Test 2

I looked at Juanjos Guarnido colour work in Juan Diaz Canales BLACKSAD for inspiration and guidance he had shades of certain colours that would show up in certain panels in the 2nd volume i really adored.

What worked?

• ·      I feel both colour tests were varied in success with panels. (examples)
• ·      Guy getting out of car on test 1
• ·      Girl with the head phones panel on test 2

• ·      Number 1 I feel is very momcrome and raw with its use of greies and dull browns but I felt it worked well with the shop interior.
• ·      Number 2 seems more dramatic and filmic with the direction of the sunlight and does the job a little more passionately

What did not?

• ·      Possibly it’s the quality of mark making on both it feels rushed and the sketchy lines can effect the colours purpose as it was all done with pen without any pencil. 

• I think I should try this technique again out on a finished standard spread.
• Could give more depth and understanding of how effective my style will be in future story telling.

In terms of story I am sticking with my initial idea of children’s rhythms and tales and crating my alternative version on them.   

hiho

penciled without colour yet
empty space on top left corner is for title, name etc.

Cheltenham Illustration alternative idea in Progress

I am working an alternative design for the tree time tales piece but looking at the idea of time using mark making achieved by the old masters like Goya and even early 20th century artists like Boris Artzybasheff and then modernizing it with urban propaganda and references to animated shows very suttlery.

The left picture is the rough layout for the piece I have a video showing the image being sketched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQXxK8YrzE&feature=channel_video_title  and the right is the obvious refined composition starting to ink it in but thinking more carefully about the marks and lines I create so it flows better with the pictures concept

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Tree Time Tales Competition entry

I will post the watercoloured version soon, let me know what you think of the overall design and whether it makes sense comments are appreciated!