Comic Book Work

The True Believer's Comic Festival will also provide a platform for me to sell and show my work as well as providing work experience and an insight into the industry.
The work I intend to produce is part of  a greater body of work from a personal comic book project. I wanted to create an image that let me express some of the themes of the comic as well as looking appealing enough that people would want to buy it without knowing the overall story. The process of producing as illustration for personal work also helps me to develop my personal practice and develop my working methods.

First rough

I knew that I wanted my main character central with the other non-human faces fading away around the side of her as this would produce a visually striking image aswell as relating to my overall story. For this I decided a central almost circular composition would provide the best effect.

Second rough (left) and inked version

I then changed the head position of my character to emphasise her expression and add a greater intensity of light and dark which I then experimented with in my inked version. I knew i wanted to use a high contrast black and white technique so used Quink ink as well as indian drawing ink in my brush pen.

Final composition drawn up

The next stage was to draw up my final compsition on A3 paper. I took plenty of time over this making sure to include all the detail I wanted and to get a good sense of light and dark so I could ink it sucessfully later. I also tilted the head slightly more forward to create darker shadows that related my character's face to the faces of the un dead faces surrounding her.

Traced ready for inking

I took the lines I wanted from the drawn image and copied the onto new A3 with tracing paper. This was a laborious process and eventually I would like to get a light box to cut this time down.

Inking

I began inking using Quink ink and an angled brush starting strong in the centre and fading out with water to create the desired effect.

Final Image

I am happy with my final image. I aim to create prints of the image and to sell them at the Comic Book Festival. Hopefully I will have time to create other things to go along with it.

Work to sell for Pittville Press

Digital Prints

I decided to produce a series of digital prints to sell on the Pittville Press stall at the True Believers Festival. I considered using the Risograph but liked the colours and inky effects in the original image so wanted to reproduce this as closely as possible. Using the Risograph would mean halftoning the image and losing some of the details so I used the laser printer instead. The images were still high quality and printed on A3, I produced a set of 15 but signed them as an issue of 50 so that I can make more in the future if necessary.




I also compiled some original imagery into a booklet as a teaser for my wider comic book project. I called this a 'Preview' so that anyone who buys it will know that there will be more from the series in the future. When I am at the Comic Festival I will show this 'Preview' book to practising comic book artists to get some feedback from them and see where I can take it.

I managed to make 19 booklets, making an InDesign document digitally printing it then hand stitching them and trimming them. I found this process difficult as I had left it quite late because I wasn't sure I would have time to make anything. Also the trimmer at the studio was broken so I used a hand guillotine which didn't produce clean edges consistently. I will reflect the quality of the booklets in the price.

Booklets and prints ready to sell

I put my prints in separate A3 wallets individually signed and editioned and pressed my books so that my work looked as good as possible. I decided to sell the prints for £7 and the books for £4 with the option of buying both for £10. I feel this is a reasonable price which reflects the quality of the work and the time and effort put in to making them.