Page 4

June 15, 2011

About time this thing saw an update.

Looking at the script now and the pages created thus far I have to admit this is something of a slow start; however I am going somewhere with these scenes as they’re establishing key aspects of the setting and giving overall context to what follows. Continuing from the last page’s character introduction, I’ve attempted to add some unease with the moment aside in panel 3 while I’m also quite pleased with the almost symmetrical look of the lower page and background.

I had to make a few tweaks in my working method again, mostly to accommodate the new method of creating dialogue but it’s definitely sped up production time and saved me a lot of trouble.

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Page 3

May 28, 2011

Did I really say I was getting faster at these things?

Excuse the inexcusable lateness of this update, I could say it was down to wrangling with minute shading details or distractions mid-week but that in turn would be another excuse. Let’s just say I will definitely push my self for a quicker production schedule. That said I will be taking a week or more out from production as my module assessment is coming up and I need to focus on pulling the last few months of work together.

On the page itself, here we have an unflattering introduction to the story’s other protagonist ‘Curt’; it probably seems trivial at this stage but his unsteady phobic behaviour should hopefully foreshadow some of the key themes further down the line and perhaps provide some clues as to the plot’s direction. It’s additionally worth a mention how his green jumpsuit jars with the predominantly blue/orange colour scheme I’ve been using, emphasising the sense of him being out of place.

Balancing the colour for the scene generally proved a little more difficult than I anticipated. While I do intended to draw upon noir influences for my style I don’t want to dive straight into clichéd gloom and angular shadows – much of film noir starts out in daylight after all before approaching it’s narrative and stylistic ‘heart of darkness’ –  I don’t want to forcibly shoehorn such features in for the sake of it. All the same, my intial colours for the page came out jarringly bright which would be all well and good if I intended a light hearted atmosphere but is completely unsuitable for the tone of cyberpunk. As a solution I applied a subtle blue tint over the panels, giving the impression of the space being exposed to harsh artificial lighting and resulting in a much more even, bleak appearance to the scene.

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Page 2

May 16, 2011

Seems I’m starting to get faster producing these things, though there were some tricky aspects to the page all the same.

If I was channeling Frank Miller for my cover, here it would be fair to say I had Stanley Kubrick on the brain; specifically my recent viewing of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Besides having one of cinema’s most memorable barmy computers and a practically unmatched epic scope the film struck a chord with me predominantly thanks to its meticulous space sequences and establishers. Modern sci-fi has a tendency to rush by the details of  technology and travel, whereas 2001 took it’s time to set the scene and let you soak it in.

Branch is really not intended as a space opera in spite of the story taking place on board the titular station, rather this is a means to isolate and more sharply define the cyborg focused society. At the same time it’s of distinct importance that I establish my world and its situation early on, while emphasising the other protagonist’s arrival. Once things move inside the station there won’t be much in the way of external establishers so all the more reason to take a page out showing it.

As mentioned drawing it proved trickier than I’d initially thought though. The issue with space settings in comics is that the dark composition tends to absorb traditional black line work and swallow up the overall image as a result. To get around this I took some artistic licence and lightened things up a little opting for a dark blue rather than pitch black backdrop, something which fits nicely with the blue-brown colour palette I’m developing.

The stars also proved a problem as it was hard to find an intensity that seemed credible without drowning out the foreground images. Hand drawing them didn’t really work, so in the end I created a texture in Corel and applied it as a translucent layer over my backdrops picking out a few brighter stars here and there for good measure.  It’s not a perfect fit for the graphic style but it’s infinitely better than my initial astral scribblings…

Finally, there’s the earth itself. This was something of an afterthought, but as it came to colouring it occurred to me that the traditional old green and blue might not be the case with our future home world. Call me a pessimist but it seems a fair bet that the planet won’t look quite so pristine in the near future; hence the lean towards polluted grey-browns (which again conveniently fits with my overall colour scheme). It sets a grimmer tone than I initially intended maybe, but it does serve as an effective signifier that time has passed and things have become more desperate.

Cheery stuff eh?

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Page 1

May 11, 2011

Okay, it’s late and I seriously need to get some shut-eye so I’m afraid this will have to be quick.

What’s good: I’ve finished my first page and it doesn’t look half bad if I do say so myself. True I could have been more adventurous with the scene’s lighting and colours but I felt it wouldn’t hurt to go for something simple and clear in the opening panels as I find my feet. I went for a scheme of warm brown-oranges playing off cold blue-greys as representation of the clash embodied by Scratch herself – namely between human and machine – while I also deviated from my page plan adding an additional panel (the ear) to make it clearer that the voice is from a coms device, not her.

What’s bad: It took far longer than it should have. I have the excuse of spending time on the cover and having some fairly malignant formatting issues but the bottom line is that I need to be much faster in future if I want to stay on schedule :(


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All Systems Go!

May 7, 2011

Having run the latest by my tutor earlier this week, as I had hoped he agreed with my decision to enter production and start drawing the actual pages! I’m still testing the waters so to speak; gauging what sort of rate I can realistically work at in relation to the graphic’s final length, but otherwise it looks like production is definitely go.

One thing I have changed my mind on however is holding off on page uploads. Previously I had been printing off all concept work to run by my tutor, the problem now being that with every graphic page being in colour and  liable to see alterations according to criticism I would end up burning through a fortune in coloured ink cartridges. A fortune –  it goes without saying – which I do not have. Alternatively, uploading the pages to my blog allows me to maintain a work flow similar to that of the planning stage while making the images accessible just about anywhere without the need for costly printing.

It also means that anyone following this blog online can read the graphic online as it’s made, offering additional interest and criticism; which to my mind is no bad thing :) As you may have noticed there’s a new ‘Read it!’ tab on the toolbar where I will be collecting the pages in a similar manner to that of my concept gallery, while I shall also be doing write ups as usual on each as they are uploaded – assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

Anyway, to get things rolling I’ve made a sort of chapter cover for the first act:

I’ll be leaving the main covers until the end of production it seems, but I felt it would be a good idea to punctuate the three ‘acts’ of the story with chapter covers to make it a less unwieldy read. The intention was to have something relatively stark & experimental compared to the actual pages; I played with idea of giving it a subtitle or having more going on but in the end it seemed that something simple gave a stronger impression.

Looking at it, I’d say I was channeling a bit of Frank Miller influence into the stylised silhouette though the circuit patterning is something I thought of following my recent viewing of Serial Experiments Lain’s echoing some of its bizarre symbolic texturing. Essentially I was trying to present a fusion of Noir and cyberpunk aesthetics, while making a nod towards the intended themes regarding cyborgs and the blurred line between human and machine.

It’s not perfect as I still have a dozen insatiable niggles, but hopefully it’s a solid start.

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