Well, after spending a lot of time on my report last time, I've started to get back in the swing of working on Dreamwalkers again, despite the fact that the computer has done its upmost to stop me by crashing. I've got a counter measure, though - Save every five minutes! It gets irritating, but not as irritating as losing all that work! A bit of advice for everyone there!
As for pages, I have managed to get almost 9 pages ready for type to be added. If the computer behaves itself, hopefully I'll be on target.
Though if you're interested, I have a page that I can show. Its not spoiling everything for you guys, so I don't mind showing a little of my work in progress.
Sorry its not the most interesting of pages, but if nothing else, it might show a bit on the kind of work I'm doing - So, that is the base sketches, then the line art and the colour as well. All I need to do now is add any sound effects and any speech to this page.
Still, got a lot of work to go, since I have a total of 25 pages sketched right now. So I'll be doing my best!
I'm also contemplating what my business card will be like. I made a business bookmark last year, but people didn't seem to realise it was a business card at the convention. So I'll be looking to make a more standard business card. I have a few ideas, but nothing solid yet.
Though a character I'm considering putting on it is a mascot character made for Pandora that I created, inspired from a silly conversation I had with Nadia.
A sketch of the character is this:
Well, with a silly face. lol! I'm thinking of doing several with different expressions etc.
Its one that I've been enjoying drawing if nothing else, out of the ideas I've made, along with a cartoony picture of myself, but then again, I might use both.
I've done some external work as well! I was asked to design a tattoo. My client asked me to make a Libra symbol, with the words that are usually linked to that star sign inside it, looking as if it was carved or scratched or burned into the skin. This was what I came up with:
My client was really pleased with it as well! He's intending to have it done in December and is happy to have me photograph it once it's done, so I'll be posting that up once the tattoo is finished.
So yes, somewhat busy week this week. I hope to get a lot more done as well.
This weeks has been a little slow for me in terms of the comic itself, mainly as I had a deadline in for the report I'm currently beginning to compile, with a minimum of 2000 words needed for the initial hand in (with a maximum of 4000 words total for the full report). While this seemingly has little to do with Dreamwalkers, it has a lot to do with Tanra Studios, which is the house name that Nadia and I are producing our comics under.
We were allowed to chose our own topic of report. Considering that Nadioa and I are hoping to become a professional comic publishing house, we thought that we should tie our reports into our business ventures. So recently I've been doing a lot of research around business start ups, publishing and comic publishing houses, and spent most of the week working on putting together the research into a logical order.
Honestly, there was so much information that we've been finding out that I'm actually worried that 4000 words wont be enough, since I've pretty much hit almost 3500 words before I even got to the interviews that we're supposed to conduct! I suppose that means that I will need to go over it again to cut down a bit, but I'll be keeping the research either way, as it might come in useful at a later date.
I've also been doing some other things. Similar to last week I've done another base sketch for one of the icons for Tanra Studio's webpage, this time being the image of Mizuki:
It actually took me a lot longer than it did when I drew Huxian. Its a little odd - in terms of design, Mizuki isn't actually the mos complicated of the main characters, but for some reason she can be rather difficult to draw at times. Still, I'm rather happy how this came out. I'm sure it'll look even better once it's scanned up and had a digital touch to it.
We're also currently thinking about changing our logo for Tanra Studios. The first is a little on the akward side - we somewhat rushed it so we had a logo, but talks with John Charles made us realise it wasn't a particually good one. So, we're beginning to come up with some new ideas. I'll keep you posted on that, once we've made some good progress on that front.
There is something else I'll be doing as well as myself, rather than as part of Tanra Studios - I've entered a competition over on Deviant Art:
My Deviant Art name is Chosha-Kurenai, so keep an eye out on this contest, as I'll be placing an entry there. If anyone else is interested in taking part, you might want to check it out as well. Either way, fingers crossed for me!
Of course, I'll be doing more with Dreamwalkers again, and I hope to be a bit more productive on that front now that the first half of my report is done (for now), so hopefully next week I'll have a lot more to report for Dreamwalkers.
I'm really happy! Last time I updated I said that I had made a little goal for myself to have my base sketches to the point I had got to in thumbnails. I managed that and more!
Obviously I couldn't show the pages properly without spoiling everything, but all my sketches are in there. As you can see, its a heck of a lot of paper! I ended up drawing all of the thumbnails and a few more pages as well. And even if I don't end up completing all the pages into colour, I would still have hit my target for hand in. I do hope, however, if things go well that I can reach the end of the first volume completely. If I manage that then by MCM next May, I should have two volumes of Dreamwalkers out rather than the one I was originally planning on, which I'm really happy about!
For a bit of an update, I now have the first version of my front cover, four pages finished and awaiting sound effects/words to be added to them, and three almost finished pages. Here's hoping that progress continues as well as it seems to be doing.
On the front where Pandora is concerned, I've also been doing a little bit of work there as well, mainly helping create the website's 'sprites'. While the majority of the work towards Pandora is still in Nadia's hands, I have provided a base sketch for Huxian:
Nadia will be doing the inking and adding colour to him, however. I also need to do one for Mizuki, the other character I created for Pandora. However, for all that her design is simple, Mizuki has been a bit difficult for me. At least I have the base sketches for several posters done, but unfortunately, they wouldn't quite fit what is needed as the 'sprites' for the website, so I have to keep working on it.
Mizuki, please behave and let me draw you!
Poster wise, I currently only have one done for Huxian, which can be found on my DA account, but I have sketches done for Mizuki, Rodessa, Violet and a character who is something of a spoiler.
So I think this past week has made quite a lot of progress!
I've also been doing a bit of research recently as well into webcomics. Originally, I was just intending to sell printed copies of Dreamwalkers at conventions and such, but webcomics seem like a viable way of distribution as well. I'm currently looking at different sites that might be good for this, though I've not made any plans into these yet. I'm just making a list of some sites and will be looking at the pros and cons of using them.
Oh, something else to mention is that Dan Painter had appeared at the Studio, and after giving a talk on storyboarding, did give some really good advice.
Something we are hoping to do for Pandora is make a trailer to have playing while at MCM. He seemed to like the idea and had some really good tips. Makes me wonder if I should do something for Dreamwalkers. Part of me wants to try to make a semi-animated one, or maybe an animatic in a way I did in one of my early modules at uni, though I'm unsure when I would do that...Possibly after I've finished a couple of volumes? Its a thought either way. Its something to keep in mind.
We have a meeting later on next week with a potential musician for the instrumental that should be going along with the Pandora trailer. I'm actually really looking forwards to this!
Still, as much as I'm progressing, there's still a lot to do! Back to work I go!
Today, since the majority of my current work is a little spoilerish for the main story, I thought I would discuss something I haven't really touched upon yet - that being the characters. So, to start off the character talks, I'll be discussing the main character of the series, James Remington, who I affectionately refer to as 'Rem'.
"It's here!"
Sorry I have yet to have a fully coloured version of Rem when he's not terrified...Anyway, so Rem - or rather James Remington, since the Rem thing is more my nickname for him right now - is the main character for Dreamwalkers - you might recognise his hair from the silhouette on the front cover design. He's an aspiring author who just so happens to be suffering from reoccurring nightmares that are the key point to the Dreamwalkers story. He was also the first designed character for the story, closely followed by Somnus. Its funny, as his design closely resembles another character I made for the Potty Comic (a kids comic that we were tasked to create in our second year under the brand 'Potty' - because it was a comic based in the Potteries) - though perhaps I should say Chris resembles a much younger version of Rem, as I created Rem first, despite having not got around to utilising him until now.
Makes me think I should do a spin off story though. Nadia and I joke that perhaps Rem and Chris are actually siblings. lol. Could be fun to do. Rem, being of age, does live on his own, so who knows, they could be!
I was inspired to create Rem at the same time I was inspired to create dreamwalkers, as he literally came into creation at the same time. The main inspiration for the story and Rem was a Swedish song (a lullaby, I think?) called Byssan Lull, specifically the version sung by Carola. This is the song, if you're interested:
While at the time I didn't know the meanings of the lyrics (not that the lyrics have any terrible meanings or anything. It sings of things that come in threes, which is ironic as I initially made three main characters as the first of the SOS crew before I actually discovered the translated lyrics. lol). I think its because of the lullaby tone in how this version is sung, but it made me think of some kind of dream based world, while its haunting sounds made me think of darker aspects of dreams and somehow I ended up creating the story, and subsequently, Rem and Somnus as the first characters.
I'll speak about Somnus another time, however.
Rem, I wanted to make him a fairly ordinary seeming kind of guy, since he is the one who needs to be mostly related to as the main character who's adventures we're following. So for the most part, a chose a fairly simple design in that he isn't other worldly, while at the same time giving him interesting aspects to his appearance and personality so he wouldn't be too dull either. For example, I gave him green eyes mainly as a personal choice, as while it is a colour that people can naturally have, its not a common eye colour either. I also needed ways for him to be recognized as he doesn't have one outfit he always wears either (again, in real life you dot exactly see people with a wardrobe consisting of a single outfit), so as well as the eye colour, I designed his hair to be unruly so you could tell its him in a silhouette - due to that, the hair that constantly stands up on his head (to use the manga term 'Ahouge', or 'Idiot Hair') seemed like a natural progression.
Personality wise, I tried to make him a personality which would counterbalance the more mysterious and slightly whimsical manner that Somnus portrays himself as. So, Rem ended up being the (usually) more down to earth, sarcastic and suspicious kind of person, although most of this seemed rather tempered when I realized that reoccurring nightmares of being hunted night after night that are getting progressively more realistic might psychologically effect someone. Thankfully, assuming everyone likes Dreamwalkers, once the first volume is over, Rem's personality gets far more time to shine.
I did also mention his aspiring author status. Well, that wasn't just my own ideas trying to burst through there as a comic artist. lol. It actually does have a point to Rem's story, though how, I wont say just yet.
Currently, Rem is the character I have drawn the most so far in Dreamwalkers and is one of the most fun to draw, mostly because while somewhat simple to draw, he is also the most expressive of the characters currently, especially as he is discovering the Dreamwalkers world alongside the reader, so I have a lot of fun expressing his thoughts and feelings, even before I touch word balloons. As they say, actions speak louder than words.
If nothing else, the 'many faces of Rem' will be good for my portfolio. lol.
I'll be showing more panels involving Rem at later times, as I dont want top spoil too much, so dont expect too much context with the images. At least until the comic is released.
On a note about the comic, as an update, I have a rough script to about midway through the story (note this is going to be a long story, surpassing the 24 pages of Susanoo once it is complete - 24 pages is not even mid point!), I have the thumbnails done to page 18 so far, with three pages complete (but waiting text), and 9 pages sketched and waiting for final line art and colour. For next week, my goal is to have all the thumbnails sketched to scan ready stages, maybe having one more page ready for the sound effects/speech to be added. Since 16-24 pages are the minimum I'm hoping to complete for this term, I'm hoping that I'll soon have 24 pages ready to go.
Oh, not sure if I'll have a colour picture for Somnus ready for next week, so might do these character talks every alternate week.
I'll let you know if my plans work out next time, however.
