Work is going well on the book. Lots of thumbnails and test pieces. Once I have thumbnailed a few of the opening scenes I will get started on finished artwork. All being well I will have some early stuff to show at ThoughtBubble and maybe even launch the Kickstarter campaign. Needless to say, if you are interested in being part of the Kickstarter campaign say now so that I can get a sense of it.
So before I dive into drawing the panels I need to really know who the characters are and what the world is. Like HORIZON, OXYGEN has a very limited cast and a distinct environment. Nonetheless, anything that appears in it needs to be designed. There are some things that can be designed when I get to them but its always good to nail down the main things. Last post had a couple of turnarounds but this time, a couple of early sketches for other stuff. No big secret that this is a Science Fiction book. Well sort of. Below are a quick sketch for the ship that our hero travels in and the Stasis Bay where he makes the journey.
Writing is cracking on and I am going to start roughing out the first chapter very soon and do a couple of sample panels. Will post when they are done.
When I was developing HORIZON I found it really useful to do a turnaround of the main characters. Working in games and TV production it is something that I am familiar with and very aware of how easier it makes things going forward. In Games, TV and Film it is usually done to show the overall design of the character so that the CG modeller can build it and so that the storyboard artists and animators know what the character looks like and what their size is compared to any other main character in the show. So far in OXYGEN there are only two main characters. There will be others that I may do turns of but to get things rolling I wanted get these two done. One is our Astronaut hero (as seen on the cover) and the other is a small drone bot that accompanies him. I have blurred the names out for now. Will reveal those further down the line. There is a good reason for that which will become clear when I do.
Revealed most of it in the last post but… here is the full cover art. That’s not to say that it will be the cover. Feels good at the moment but by the time the book is done something else might occur. But for now it works. Once I had settled on a title for the book I looked around for a font. There are a ton of great Sci-Fi fonts out there and many of them would have worked well, but I wanted something else added that didn’t quite fit with the ones I found. So I set about designing the logo fonts myself. Not a full alphabet but just enough for the title logo. Then it was a question of layering up some imagery in Photoshop that would be an accurate expression of what I had in my head. Key thing here is to show something that reflects many of the aspects of the narrative but without giving too much away. There is a whole load of imagery in there that will make sense when you finally get to read the story, but for now… it just kinda looks nice 🙂 Having a cover is a good way to start to get people interested in the book even though there is no art yet. What it also does is help me pull the concept into focus. I have it all in my head but with this cover it begins to feel real. The main character and the mood of the book is staring back at me now, demanding progress 😮
Next task? turnarounds of the main characters. I did that with HORIZON and it helped a lot.
For a while I have been looking for a theme and subject for a new graphic novel. Seems I now have it…
I have been wanting to do another book for a long time. Settling on the idea that feels like the right one to take up the time to produce it is tough. Finally nailed it.
Putting together another 120 (ish) page graphic novel is going to take some work. It’s largely plotted out but not much art yet, although I have done a ‘turn’ of the main character and a first pass cover. Will post those in the next couple of days.