Artist research.
I follow this artist on instagram and i've been inspired by her fine liner drawings for a fair while. I love the amount of detail she manages to put in with different effects such as weight of line, stippling and hatching.
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I was shown this graphic novel in lecture and something about it just stuck with me. I eventually even bought myself a copy. I love how well paced and well drawing it is. I also love the fact its in black and white, It feels much more 'classic' in feel. Im pretty sure Id like my comic to be black and white too.
initial idea:
As soon as we were given the theme of coming out of lockdown I was pretty certain I would talk about my anxiety at the time. That was the main thing I had to work through during lockdown and coming out of lockdown. I thankfully have had counselling and am much better now so I thought this could be a good way to express those feelings and emotions to close that chapter of my life, much how derf did with the my friend Dahmer book.
Thumbnails
I was really struggling with how to layout my thumbnails for each page, obviously I couldn't make multiple thumbnails for each page otherwise I would be sat there forever and the deadline did not give time for that. I knew the story in my head just not how to put it onto paper. I first tried looking at comics and how they are sectioned into panels. Id never attempted a comic format before so I really wanted my final piece to look like a comic.
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I wrote out what id like to show for my comic at first in a flow chart.
Reflecting on it now I think I was overly ambitious, I added way too many pages and too much detail for something that really didn't need that much depth . After feedback from Dwayne saying to make the comic short and sweet I decided to cut the story down a considerable amount. |
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I was much too worried about how id go about drawing the comic also. I was stuck on whether to simplify myself as a character, like a cartoon. I even considered drawing myself as a cat at one point to try and make the artwork much more simple for me to make.
Again, after my feedback session from Dwayne I was advised to just draw. I realised there's no need to put stress on myself drawing it a certain way and just embrace my 'natural style'. I also wanted to show off my improvements with fine liner and penmanship after working hard all semester. |
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This is how I initially started my thumbnailing, I drew out how I would lay out the comic then tried to fill in the squares, this method wasn't working out so great though.
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This was probably the best decision I made at this point because I was struggling with putting my ideas onto pages. I made a mock up book and filled the pages with a layout I liked and then simply put what was in my head down into the squares. This was such a better way of visually wrapping my head around the project.
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Final comic pages:
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I am incredibly proud of this outcome and am planning on getting it printed in future. I put so much effort into getting every page just right and honestly have never considered doing comic work before but now I might be. I slowed down and took my time on the penmanship and I think it shows. I also made sure to make the pacing go along with the feelings on each page. I also love how the deadpan style makes it feel emotionless and numb from the outside when he story clearly shows that there's a lot more going on inside my head .