Drawing Proposal

Brief

I will be creating a 12 page comic based upon my own story which I have created for the project. In this comic I hope to explore more creative and flamboyant ways I can portray characters to make them more interesting to the viewer. 

Audience: 

My target audience will be ages 16+ as some of the themes/designs present in the characters will be mature and not suitable for a younger audience. The Comic will also feature violence and sexual themes not suited for younger audiences. This common will also be aimed at people who love action, especially the over the top action often found in Japanese comics, video games, and animation (Shonen battle manga's (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Berserk), Devil May Cry, Bayonetta etc.

Story Outline:

In terms of the story it will be based around a leading heroine after picking up the mantle as demon hunter after her father's passing, at the young age of 17 she will now have to fight the hordes of the underworld just like her father. 3 months after receiving her new title she is sent images from an unknown source of her older sister who she assumed had died years ago, gathering what little courage she has left she goes out into the world, holding onto the hope that her sister may truly alive so that she may no longer have to hold onto this burden and can return to a normal life.

Artist Models/ Inspirations

Marc Brunet

Marc brunet is concept artist/ illustrator, who has previously done work for Blizzard as their lead designer, working on games such as heroes of the storm, Over watch and world of Warcraft. Brunets art style is one that is textured and painterly, very much akin to traditional oil painters as you can often see the paintwork and majority of his artwork is created in one layer in Photoshop and using the brush tool with transfer turned on in the settings and layering/blending each color on top of each other to create a painterly effect. While my style is somewhat similar to Brunets their is a lot I want to learn from him in terms of character design. Brunets characters are bright, colorful, unique and detailed, incorporating details that may otherwise seem insignificant yet tie the character together in the final render. While Brunet is not a comic book artist his work is a very good reference for me as I am an oil painter and haven't comfortably mad the transition over to digital as fluidly as I liked so by using techniques that mimic traditional oil painting might help.

WLOP

Wlop is both and illustrator and a comic book artist having done work for very large and famous  companies such as square enix and Sega, however most of his time is dedicated to his online Web comic Ghost Blade. In comparison to WLOP's professional work vs his comic book work their is a consistent expressive style however its much looser in his comic book work with clear texture being seen within parts of the figure which help create a sense of life and movement to his work (notably his comic work).  This sense of life and movement is also created through his use of color and lighting. Within many of his works heavy lighting is almost always used, this helps dramatize the scene/ event with the story. When creating my comic this is something that I would like to incorporate into my comic to help highlight serious events within the comic. One of the main reasons I've chosen WLOP is for his expressive art style that heavily replicates oil painting however unlike Brunet, WLOP will often use more than one layer when creating a painting often using 2-5 layers to create his more serious illustrations. Using WLOP as an artist model will help transition me over to photoshop alot easier and allow me to experiment more with the layer system while also keeping a painterly style. In terms of structuring panels WLOP seems to follow a certain structure, with large panels all down-the page, typically their would only be 3-5 per page with no panel placed next to each other, each panel either being above or below each over. This is a structure that I could consider when making my comic.

Ahmed Aldoori

Ahmed Aldoori is a digital illustrator and concept artist, who has worked with many big companies designing character concepts for games. What drew me to his style was his quick and expressive painting technique which has an appealing outcome is very quick to achieve when looking at some of the many speed-paints Aldoori has uploaded onto his you-tube channel. Another thing that drew me to Aldoori's work is his art style which is heavily stylized, allowing for more expressive and exaggerated characters than reality would allow. While not a comic book artist Ahmed Aldoori is an excellent artist model for my work especially giving my style, what I aim to learn from Aldoori is how he effortlessly achieves this painterly look rendering finished illustrations in less than 2 hours. This means I will be consuming many of his you tube videos in order to learn and develop this skill, and in turn implement into my own work.

Early designs and concepts

Here I have some examples of early designs of my characters that I will be using for my comic book. In these concept drawings you can see that I have not yet finalized the designs of the characters or the art style so these concept are just early experiments of what I aim to create. While I do intend on using an expressive art style I will be using a lot more line art in my work to make the figures stand out alot more, as I plan to make the background stand out amougst the foreground.

In conclusion I will be creating a 12 page comic exploring how I can create a convincing setting through character interaction.