More Character Designs

Hey all. Well here are some more character designs from my comic that I am working on. I am really happy with the way the Ghost Monk is turning out but I think I need to work more on the kid and his dad.

Character Design: Señora Flores

Here is the final character design for Señora Flores. Even though she is probably only going to be used in this story, I wanted to really work hard on the character designs for all the characters in this comic as it establishes the feel of the world I am creating. I changed her look to be more in line with my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Jantz. I was originally thinking about having Mrs. Jantz show up as a ghost sometime in my comic but changed my mind. Even though the character of Señora Flores is a sweet old lady (as opposed to Mrs. Jantz being a mean old lady) I thought it was a good fit :)

Sketchbook Post

Here are a couple of more pages from my sketchbook. The top drawing is going to be the first panel from my preview book. I like the vibrancy of the drawing but there are a lot of fixes I need to make. Not happy with the car or building designs, the perspective is WAY off (but that is no big shocker as it was just practice). I want all my background art to have character and be vibrant, a living world that is as unique as the characters who inhabit it.

The bottom drawing is a design for some characters for a later story. I’m not going to go into any details about them but they are my version of gremlins and I can’t wait to draw the issue :)

More Plots!

Whew! Finished writing/plotting my comic (took a little longer due to spider interference...DAMN SPIDERS!!). Here are the rough plots, really quite happy with the overall results. This is the second time I plotted this and I like this one WAY better. The flow and pacing is a lot better, the first one had too long of a fight scene and not enough build up. The previous ending was also really rushed which meant that the story lacked a satisfying ending.

When you have an action story, whether it’s a comic, movie, tv show or book - people tend to remember the big action scenes. It’s always “Oh man! That was SO awesome when...”, but without the build up to that action, the audience is not invested in the characters and the “bad-ass” parts lose their impact. The same goes for the ending. If something I am watching has a terrible ending (Sopranos, I’m looking at you...) the audience feels cheated.

Your reader is investing time in your comic, they should get something in return. A payoff. It’s important to give them something worth looking at and worth reading. A story that invites the reader into this world that you are creating and makes them want to come back.

The previous plots I did for this story (full pages as well) lacked a lot. I love the fact that only a year later, I can make something that is far superior to the original.

Thumbnails and Plotting

Here are the thumbnails for the first four pages for my comic Carla Calaveras, the short story is called "The Preview of Doom!!" and is going to probably be somewhere between 8-12 pages. This is something I want to showoff the character as sort of a pitch piece to publishers and potential readers.

The thumbnails are pretty much my writing method, I draw the pictures then write notes on the side as to what is going on. I don't usually write scripts and have no dialogue written out yet (that's usually last) but I'm sure the dialogue will be quite clever what ever it turns out to be :)

I have more thumbs drawn up and will post them four at a time.

Carla Re-Design

Here is the redesign of an original character that I am working on again. I love the character and the world that I was creating for her, so I thought I would take another swing at it. The original pages were stolen a few months back as well as a bunch of the original source material that I had been working on.

(P)imp

I think that Peter Dinklage is awesome. He really makes Game of Thrones a truly fun show to watch. Here is a scan out of my sketchbook for an idea I have for a Tyrion Lannister pin-up that I think would be pretty cool. I may not get to it right away as I am anxious to get some sequential pages done, but this is definitley one I plan on doing.