making the comic pages

the plan is to make the comic pages not as full pages but as a series of assets that fit together into the pages that way i could use them to make a motion comic with some parallax animation (and hopefully still have time to try out some cel animation)

my cel shading

so heres my cel shading attempt, i'm pretty chuffed, i reckon i'm getting the hang of it. so yeah this'd be the image in competition with the previous cover design for fronting my comic.

cel shading

i dont know if cel shading is the proper term but i've been told it is, basically you section off the pieces you want to be in shadow or darker and colour the block you've sectioned in a darker shade and you get pretty strong contrasts that super define the shades areas. no blending. its pretty cool and i just wanted to show that its pretty standard in manga and anime, which as i've mentioned in precious posts is a style thats popular among monster hunter fans and its a style i think i'd enjoy working with. anyway, you can see from the pictures in previous posts that cel shading is all over the place but heres a couple more manga images as examples of cel shading.

other cover

i worked out some line art for another cover image with all the characters on, it was actually the tutors idea to but the kutku (monster) in the image and she's right because it gives non fans something of idea of what they'd get if they read the comic. i gues its in the titles too but a pictures worth a thousand words right? anyway, i recycled some of the line art from the previous cover because i really liked the pose that sky was doing and i was happy with the picture, this isnt even coloured though and already i prefer it as an image... i reckon its much stronger. i'll put it to the vote though when i've got it coloured. oh and it'll be cel shaded like the way i'm planning on doing the interior pages so it should give a good indication of the artistic style direction.

update on project

the rough versions of my pages seem to have been approved in a crit, i mean the tutors looked at them and didnt say they were bad or to make any changes but i dont know... felt like they were more interested in other aspects of the project and maybe didnt read them? anyway, i reckon i'm going to need a new cover not just to try the group shot image on it but also because i mentioned to one tutor that i was planning on doing cel shading for the coming (cel shading is very mange / anime) and he was like "so why is the cover in watercolour paints?" and i see what he means, i need to be consistent, i guess some comics get away with it because they are black and white inside but i chose full colour so i need to keep a consistent style and such.

also i talked about my plans for the animation, which were a bit vague at the crit, you can see in previous posts that i've mentioned motion comics and also come up with an idea for an animation that was completely separate to the comic but with the same characters. after the crit i think its better to go with a motion comic, i never realized what a huge undertaking it was to work on concept design, research and make a comic (short as it is) so the motion comic at least will let me use assets i make for the comic and save me some time. also it will be cool just to have on a website alongside the comic. i'll talk more about the animation later though. x

sharknife

i mentioned sharknife already but i thought it was worth mentioning twice, i love the cool bright colours of the cover image (showing a group of characters!) and the awesome dynamic qualities of the pages inside, skewed cameras and massive foreshortening give you a real feel for the action.

mother cover

a front cover idea for the comic, you can see the full progress of the image from doodle to painted to finished, its pretty wierd when you look back because you can see which bits i thought were working in the crappy doodles and see what i took forward and what i abandoned. odd looking back that way.

got my one character in pride of place but i'm already thinking there are some mistakes, like how i went for sky on the cover because she's my favorite but she's not really the main character....

i'll try a group protagonist cover later so keep an eye out