Experimental Batman part 2

Decided to push what I did yesterday a bit further, with interesting results. There are a couple of failures, and they were due to using markers over pencils which is hard to control that led to them being ruined and unfinished. The rest however were done in a similar fashion as before though some are done a little differently. One example is that I used the markers as a base colour only, and then gone over it in polychromos pencils to add tone.

The third image on the top row shows a bit more what I am striving to achieve. Essentially I plan on doing a complete greyscale noir image of Batman without having to ink my line work. It has been refreshing and overly different to how I normally work, and I can see this being used again for future works so I will continue to push it further.

Experimental Batman

Currently doing a bit of media experimentation with polychromos pencils and marker pens. I'm currently working on special noir styled piece for an upcoming event with my local comic book store, celebrating the 75th Anniversary of The Batman. Though scanning images done in pencil and markers has always come out very poorly, so I tried a higher resolution. It does look better than usual but it's not quite to my liking. 

The far right image is just pencil over marker blended with a marker pen. It didn't achieve the desired affect as the pencil didn't really blend or smooth out onto the marker.

The middle image is just pencil over markers in a near finished state just to give an overall idea of what the finished visual would look like. 

The last image is the same as the previous expect the use of pencil to add tone over the marker on the face and top of the cowl, via sansador on a tortillon. This is closer to the affect I wish to achieve, and aim to push it with further samples. 

Pencil Sketch

So for the first comic that I will be doing featuring this character of mine, I have been trying to figure out a way to create a moody atmosphere with the images with the intent that the comic would be printed in B/W, since printing in colour is too expensive. Originally I was just going to do it all in my usual single tone colour which would come out grey from the printing. But I wanted to do something that takes advantage of that print process and not let it hinder me. So I figured pencil is an obvious choice to make a dark, gritty, moody atmosphere that evokes Noir. 

And that brings us to this sketch, done in HB pencil and black watercolour pencil (a cheap one) and ink for the solid blacks. Upon reflection I feel its still a medium I am not used to in terms of rendering my images in this fashion and it will require me to keep on practicing until I think its good enough for the printed comic. 

So next time I will use different paper and a better black pencil too.

As for the story its still being refined. The first issue is being overhauled as there were too many comic book cliches. Also creating a voice for the character to come through the dialogue is harder than I thought. So basically it feels as though I am starting from scratch again.

I hope to get the comic finished by the end of August so it gives me time to get it ready and printed just in time for DevCon1. I should have some progress shots of the comic coming up soon, so keep watching this site.

The Apple Tree

I am currently providing artistic assistance for a small film group with their project entitled 'The Apple Tree'. Their film is set in the modern time and in the past, specifically during World War One. They are currently shooting their promo which I have provided a storyboard to guide them. In addition I designed a logo for their production with a Rackham-esque apple tree.

Logo

Page one of the storyboard