Following my second visit to the birthplace of modern
comics, New York, I became inspired to create my own fully rendered comic book
for my final major project. Comics have been a major influence on my artistic
development, throughout my childhood. The context of this creation is still
undecided at this point in time, as I aim to make it personal but I am having
to consider my options and the time it will take to produce these outcomes
comparatively with how effective the outcomes will be. The ideas that I am torn
between are: based upon a series of my dreams, my experience in New York over a
24-hour period or delve into another genre I enjoy, horror.
Over the last few years many comic artists have influenced
my practice, including but not limited to; Alex Ross, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee,
Frank Miller, and Daniel Indro. This time I may delve into Silent comics, where
there is no text or narration and all of the story has to be told by the
images. I am looking at the work of Eric Drooker, a New York based artist who
also used to create political street posters back in the 1990’s. Another
artist, whom I shall look further into, is Lewis LaRosa, an artist for Valliant
comics who mainly uses pencil and ink. I may also examine the work of Hayden
Sherman, as his style appears quite distressed and intrigues me.
I aim to visit independent comic shops to observe a wider
range of relevant art source material as I feel it would serve as more use to
me than going to a gallery to observe Fine Art. I’ll also be looking at a range
of different comics digitally where possible for inspiration on layouts and
other rendering styles. I’ll do this through sites like ‘www.issuu.com’, where
they contain archives of older comics like Epic Illustrated which would be hard
to track down 30 years after release.
Before beginning my outcome, there are a few things I intend
to do in preparation and correct any issues along the way: Firstly, create a
plot for my comic, and at this stage I will aim to try and create at least
three alternatives to allow me to explore which will be most interesting to
work on and most viable to create within my time limit. Secondly, I shall work
on a more detailed script working from the plot that I had created prior,
unless I choose to make this comic silent in which case I will further develop
my plot into a page by page list of bullet points giving me a rough idea of
what will occur within the narrative. Thirdly, I will begin on storyboards
which will help me to visualise what it is that I am aiming to create, using
just rough forms to represent the focal points. Fourthly, the character design,
in which I will visualise the characters of which that will appear within my
narrative and help me to concoct the proportions for my scenes, whilst doing
this I shall also be testing out different styles and proportions of drawing my
characters, to see which creates the most effective impact upon an observer. Fifthly,
I shall begin to draft up a series of small potential layouts for my pages to
give me a better understanding of how I can progress my narrative first by
observing the layouts in existing comics, then creating some if my own. I shall
also look into this by reading an article by artist Lewis LaRosa titled
‘storytelling tips for comic books’ and taking from this tips and ideas for my
own layouts. Finally, create a single page for my comic in its entirety before
I begin on full creation, to test if the style of art works within the context
of the page. This also serves as a basis for colour tests, to see if there is a
colour pallet that works for this or I may work solely in a noir style like the
Sin City books of Frank Miller, with just the occasional application of colour
or none at all.
Within this project I have an estimated timescale for the
duration of my work, detailing each section that I will progress through. But
it remains at an approximation to allow for amendments as I progress through
and the flexibility when any potential issue shall arise during the production
of my work. *see appendix 1*
My timescale may be
tight to work within, due to the work going on externally including the set up
for the show, hospice project. As a result, to account for this when it comes
to inking my panels, I shall try to maintain minimal tone within my line work
to begin with, to keep my work consistent throughout, in case I fall behind
schedule but with time building my tone up on the whole as I progress.
I’m hoping to flush out any ideas with the style of art I
will use for my panels, by creating one page entirely before I begin the
production of the rest of my outcome to ensure that the style works for me and
that a minimal time period is wasted on a un successful avenue. To ensure that my
progress is sufficient to meet my deadline, I shall be planning every day at
the end of the last. However, if I don’t complete a part of my days plan, it
will be pushed to the next day, but done first thing and I shall push myself
further to catch up on the ground I have lost.
I am going to attempt to review my work at the end of each
day to stay on top of it all and keep a better track upon my progress through
the project, but it also serves as a time for me to amend my timescales,
re-align my practice with my goal and not to let myself to go off on a tangent.
When I have created the outcome, it comes to publish, or I bind it in some
fashion and I feel that I could attain a better finish, if I get it created
through more professional means, namely using an online service called blurb
which will work but I have to consider the monetary costs there on top of my
materials costs for creating the rendered pages and such. When it comes to the
presentation of my final outcome, I may feel that on it’s own it may look quite
dull, so an initial idea would be to make the surrounding area look like a
studio space, with research and work placed on walls around, potentially
showing my influences and adding to the context of the art within.
Appendix 1
The approximate timescale is:
·
Plot and script within 7-9 days
·
Artists style developments 1-2 days each
·
Character designs and style tests 2-3 days
·
Storyboards with annotation 5-7 days
·
Set layouts and canvasing environments 2-3 days
·
Colour tests and test page 1 or 2 days
·
Pencils 1-2 weeks (potentially staggered with
inks)
·
Inks 2-3 weeks (potentially staggered by
pencils)
·
Colouring (if time) 1 week approx.
·
Cover creation 5-7 days
·
Assembly and finishing 2-3 days
Therefore, overall up to 71-78 days for completion.
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