Concept: Branch (external)

April 16, 2011

Here’s an odd addition to my concept work: the outside of the titular ‘Branch’ space station, the setting for my story.

I say it’s odd because this is an uncommon viewpoint, likely to only occur maybe once or twice in the narrative while the rest of the action takes place within – as you may recall I uploaded a concept of the internal cityscape some time ago – all the same, I still felt compelled to draw the outside in order to create a stronger sense of the space within and firmly acknowledge the orbital setting.

Much like the buildings inside it’s intended to be a poorly maintained ramshackle structure; an installation which started life as a shipyard before the original owners were crushed under debt and forced to appropriate it as improvised real estate. Much like the cyborgs who populate it, the setting  is an uncomfortable hybrid of old and new that was repurposed out of necessity rather than some shining conviction. An unglamorous stop-gap that’s acquired a population it can’t shake; part corporate venture, part ghetto and part prison.

While the general shape and design of the structure are more or less as I initially envisioned I will admit that I scaled it down considerably to meet both artistic and practical considerations. Originally I had written that Branch would have a diameter of three kilometers by over a dozen in length, but as you may guess looking at the internal view for comparison it ended up as less than half of that. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it enhances the atmosphere of claustrophobia and tension while still providing a sizable setting to work with – that, and it gives me much less to draw :p

Being serious though, I tried to be sensible with the design to give the impression of a rugged but ultimately sturdy structure which could sustain itself to some degree. The enormous solar panels wrap around the hull on either side ensuring the maximum amount of sunlight is caught for power, while the multiple docking arms allow arrivals and departures to be handled en mass. It’s not the most attractive design in some respects, but then I couldn’t imagine such a structure realistically would be.

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Posted by Ozy

Concept: Street Level

March 23, 2011

Excuse my recent absence, I was away longer than I’d like and WordPress went down when I finally did have something to post. Anyway I present to you the fruits of my recent labours:

This concept is a first in more than one respect; it’s the first full colour image I’ve created for this project (excluding my previous experimentation in shades of blue) while it’s also the first piece to feature two of my characters within the same scene. The latter point I felt was especially important, the intention here being to portray a quieter moment placing emphasis on more subtle body language over action or high drama. Scratch is laid back whilst remaining cold and calculated – a casual smoke in hand but a backwards glance and straightening of the tie suggesting caution. In contrast Curt’s neurotic personality is suggested respectively by a wringing of the hands and eyes focused on the ground.

I should also note that this is the first time I’ve drawn my setting from a street level perspective; something which proved a challenge thanks to the curved cityscape but is ultimately reassuring to have tested, appearing much as I’d have hoped. The characters fit into the setting convincingly while there should be just enough sci-fi evident in the backdrop to keep things intriguing.

Possibly the most troublesome aspect of the piece though was the colours, specifically creating a palette suitable to the mood but also striking enough to make the background and foreground distinct. As with previous colour work I used Corel Photo Paint 11as while I am competent with Adobe Photoshop I can work quicker with the former thanks to its preferable toolset and streamlined interface.In terms of the distant and immediate buildings, I gave the foreground a brown-orange hue and set it against a background of blue-grey tones to play upon complimentary colours and make the nearby scenery standout. I kept both of these elements fairly muted to evoke an appropriately grim atmosphere but also to avoid drowning out my characters. In contrast I made Scratch and Curt as brightly coloured as I dared to draw the viewer’s attention to them first.

Just as I attempted to communicate each character’s personality through pose and body language, so too have I tried to embody something of it in their colour scheme. Scratch is predominantly coloured with blues and greys to represent her cynicism and calm machine-like approach while emphasising her symbiosis with technology – the hard beetle like shell of her prosthetics and implants only furthering this sensation – Curt’s organic nature meanwhile is embodied through the green jumpsuit, while it could also be tied to less favourable (though appropriate) connotations such as inexperience, jealousy and sickness.

Generally speaking the concept is a sort of benchmark for the graphic itself, being a kind of prototype for the look of pages in the production phase. Truthfully I spent a disproportionate amount of time working on it and I can’t claim I’m entirely happy with the result but as ever it marks another significant step towards getting this thing off the ground and something to build upon further in my future work.

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Posted by Ozy

Concept: Feeling the Blues

February 19, 2011

This piece was something of an experiment in style. Being urged to leave my comfort zone and use new techniques I suppressed my usual crosshatching tendencies and tried something different.

Drawing Scratch I attempted to integrate some of the noir aesthetic I’ve been researching recently, creating heavy areas of pure black shadow across her figure to give the impression of depth and stark lighting. While I was basing this on the look of genre films I additionally drew on comics featuring appropriate high contrast styles such as Sin City and Savage, sacrificing detail for intensified mood. The trench coat she’s wearing resembles the kind Bogart wears in Casablanca and The Big Sleep, a new design which pushes her appearance away from that of traditional sci-fi with the prominent cyborg fixtures being concealed beneath it. This may seem illogical given my setting, however I feel it counterbalances by introducing intriguing themes of concealment and deception. Dressed like this Scratch could almost pass for being a regular human being, were it not for jagged circuitry mark on her neck and unnatural shine to her eyes.

The background interior was loosely based off one of Marchand and Meffre’s photographs of downtown Detroit – somewhere suitably bleak for the tone with a few additions to suggest a futuristic scenario. However, as with Scratch I’ve toned down the more obvious cyberpunk facets in favour of a more credible scene, with only the slightest hint it take place in the future. The focus being on the ambience rather than technological wows.

In relation to this I considered how Eduardo Risso’s artwork in 100 Bullets would often be given a specific colour palette for different settings and characters, giving stories their own distinct visual flavour and creating a vivid atmosphere. Here I wanted to reflect Scratch’s cynical personality with cold blues, also approaching the appearance of monochrome inherent in classic noir cinema.

My biggest complaint of the final image is that the lighting of the subject and setting don’t quite mesh with the background lacking the same sharp definition of light and shadow Scratch has. I’m pleased with the brooding atmosphere and look of the new trench coat, but I think I need more practice getting to grips with digital colouring and convincing lighting.

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Posted by Ozy

Setting: Reality and Fiction

February 13, 2011

I was recently considering how I might approach the design for my downtrodden fictional setting when I conveniently stumbled on examples of a real one. I was looking at William Gibson’s Twitter when I discovered a link to some recent photography of downtown Detroit taken by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

What really draws me to these images are the conflicting feelings they trigger:  the sight of once remarkable architecture and ornamentation decaying is undeniably depressing, but at the same time I feel they take on eerie new beauty in their neglect. Formerly one of America’s most prosperous cities and a capital of car production, following the 1960’s Detroit was hit hard by recession (particularly in the last few decades) and thus these bizarre abandoned spaces occur. Given the borderline post-apocalyptic vibe the photos give off, it isn’t hard to imagine why much of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York was shot there.

It also got me thinking about some of the derelict industrial estates around my home city of Hull though and how they too might provide suitable inspiration – if that is a word appropriate for such bleak scenery – so I charged up my camera and took a walk amongst the factories and warehouses. I won’t even begin to pretend my amateur photos (below) approach the professional standard of Meffre and Marchand’s but it proved to be a considerably more personal and frankly refreshing research direction than I’m accustomed to. These are places I see all the time, but rarely give much thought to effectively filtering them out of my daily life. Taking a closer look, I was genuinely surprised how much of interest there was to be found.

Which brings me to my setting. I’ve said little to nothing on this blog about it, so I’ll elaborate a little to make sense of the rough sketch below.

‘Branch’ – the current title of my comic – is also the name of the station the story takes place within. Set during an unspecified near future this structure orbits the earth, isolated and decaying but also densely populated; a pressure cooker of turmoil, bigotry and corruption with the catalyst of cybernetic technology to stir things up. In line with cyberpunk’s tendency to take elements of the familiar and make them strange the buildings and streets themselves are intended to be fairly conventional, the strangeness arising from the disorientating loop of gravity they curl around.

The concept of a drum shaped station with circular gravity is far from original but I like the idea of crumbling retro buildings being grafted onto the hull like barnacles –parasitic structures using every available inch of space. In a sense, like the cyborgs there’s something vaguely nauseating about the clash of old and new it presents which should hopefully compliment the themes as such.

While it’s currently pretty crude, when it comes to more detailed concepts I’m hoping to draw on my photography research for a suitably worn down industrial look, suggesting somewhere ripe with promise abandoned to decline and long term ruin.  It’s all very rough for now, but besides providing a template for more refined work later it at least proves I can draw the damn thing…

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Posted by Ozy