Comic in motion

My first comic page is possibly my favourite because of the ball pen technique, where you use lines for shading, it gives off a rough texture which fits the mood of the comic but i mostly like the first panel where it shows off a closeup of the main characters most vulnerable moment as a spider.

To improve this page i would have practiced different flowers as well as focus on making an exciting background.

Here is what it looks like finished, i decided to add more than just the sketchy shading, black and white was more dynamic but i wanted a middle tone to try and show the comic is soft, it could be to fool the viewer into thinking they won't be thrown into anything but end up in tears or it could be to show its not black and white, good and bad there is a beginning, a middle and an end.

The choice in the layout fell to this as it is easier to read as well as it could represent a spider dangling from a web, it would not be hanging width wise or in a packed web, then it would be comfortable and sturdy, but it it tangled from a single strand of silk it would be easily blown away.

Step by step

First thing to do would be to crop and clean the image

after cropping i would go to image- adjustments- layers, and then i would drag the black arrow to where the black mountain starts, then i would move the grey arrow closer to the black one so that it will lighten the image which will help the lines stand out.

then i would go to image-adjustments-curves, I will play about with it until the lines become darker and the background becomes clearer

once that is done i will go to image- adjustments-selective colour and drag every colour to -100 except black, continue doing this part until there are no visible colours left, then clean up and marks left over

I immediately coloured the background so that the shading will be the focus, the shading is white added where it is necessary or where it would stand out.

after the shading is done i will need to go to illustrator to add little details, such as the boundaries of each cell, speech bubbles and text, i do this in adobe illustrator because it does not blend with the colours and instead stands out perfectly.

It is still a work in progress but I have managed to make my own blog for the comics

http://thehuggerscomics.tumblr.com/

I chose Tumblr because it is one of the most frequented blog sites and I am more likely to be noticed there, However it seemed to have a problem with the comic sizes, I did not want to shrink the image as it would affect the quality and so i cropped each panel to be posted separately, because of the layout i have chosen it is still read in the same layout

I have recently thought of changing the story, so that he is fully human when his wish was granted but when he helps Gloria his wish is broken but he is finally happy, this leaves him between human and spider but his new 'imperfect' out look on life makes him able to smile and experience emotions for the first time.

Games

As well as reading I got help for my plots with playing games, some games have their own lore and comics while others have you guessing or in some cases don't have plots at all, which are not helpful and are what I will not be talking about but an example would be pac-man or super hexagon.


Skyrim;  follows the story of a chosen one, you,  who upon arriving in this new land was arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and sent to be executed, however the trial was stopped because of the reawakening of Dragons in the land (though the dragons shown are wyverns because of the 4 limbs they have, if they had 6 they would be dragons).

You are the only one who could keep the dragons dead by absorbing their souls, you are known as the Dovahkiin, or dragonborn.

There is a war at this point so you must choose a side between the imperials and the stormcloaks, the imperials have been in charge for thousands of years and have only recently made an alliance with the high elves which sparked the war as the high elves banned the worshipping of talos, in response the stormcloaks wanted to gain power and with the recent murder of the high king became confident.


Wolf amoung us follows the stories of fairy tale characters after their stories had been finished, you play the big bad wolf who is feared greatly by most. you must investigate a murder of a fable (fairy tale person) infront of your office, while investigating you find out that the murders are only a cover up for far more darker things.

This man chose similar choices to what I made so would be a great example of the game from my perspective.

I love tell tale games style of art it looks sketchy and comic like.


Walking dead, another game by tell tale, based on comics which also lead to a TV show, follows the tale of Lee a ex history teacher who killed a man who was cheating with his wife, he witnesses a lot of death around him as the game progresses and looses both friends and acquaintances. The game has lots of choices which effect not only the peoples around him but the second season immensely which is following a young girl he was taking care of.

The style is a lot like they are trying to force a 3D image back into 2D, all the textures are merely the lines and shading.

Shadowrunners Return follows the story of you, an shadowrunner, which is someone who takes the law into their own hands in this world but not always legally, and you are trying to find your best friends and runner buddys killer, he contacts you with a recorded message as if he suspected to be murdered however the deeper you search the darker to truth is, the killer you suspected all along is apart of some otherworldly cult which wishes to summon immortal creatures to your world in order for themselves to be 'free'.

Battleblock theatre is a surprisingly dark humour or potty humoured game where you are trapped on an island with your party buddies after your ship crashes into it and you get taken captive by super intelligent cats who want you to go through trails for their own amusement while you try to rescue your friends you suspect your good friend has joined the cats side, or has been brainwashed and when you finish the trails(which should really be played in multiplayer!) you get to hatty(your friend) only to find out he has lost himself or has died.
all the while a talkative narrator gives you a puppet show and some strange jokes

The style is simple but cute, no real expressions are given to the characters except their mouths and that is only given in the puppet shows or with the heads you can get

Spiders

While looking up the right body for the undertakers story I got the idea to design his spider self first, then work around that for his more humanoid design, male Ladybird Spiders are adorable and friendly in both appearance and the fact that they are completely harmless to humans.

Though the size difference between male and female is a bit intimidating.

Spiders do not only use web to catch prey, some use it as a net to throw or capture prey by jumping and stalking while some, like this trap door spider, use it to hide themselves to they can pounce on unsuspecting prey by lifting up the trap door.

Scientists have genetically engineered goats to produce silk in their milk! however it isn't as strong as spiders but it is progress

There are some snakes such as the Rough Green Snake that eat insects and arachnids, so do birds, mammals, and reptiles but the main villain is themselves because of how territorial they are.

Designing the monster

After collecting votes on different shape faces I  have come to the idea that the monster in the story Worrying forest, should be small and mouse like with a rounded face and a starfish like noes or sensory attachment.

I first looked into Skinny pig because of their lack of fur and their odd looks compared to the furred counterpart. however i do not think i will be using this information in the final monster.

I also looked into glow worms because of their luminescent tail and shell, I think i will be using this information for the final design of the monster.

Because of the rounded faces i thought it would be a good idea to look into mouse skulls, however they were not as round as i expected, of course i could always make the shape much rounder to emphasise it but the skulls were very interesting, the rat skull (the one at the back) was the most intrieging because it was rounder than the mice ones as well as stronger which i may take into account for the monster in mind.

I looked a bit more into rats to be sure they were the right shape and character for this monster

I am thinking that its head is made of a transparent jelly, similar in appearance to the glow worms tail but you can see its skull, which would be similar to a rats with in it, the starfish noes is still up for debate

Plans and practices

Here are my practices on the Canvas' I made using MDF cut 44 width and 61 length, then covered by a strong durable fabric over one to make a canvas, the other remained without the fabric to test texture and to just make sure it was the right effect.

 This one was first to do, I used just the primed MDF board for this, I also tried to do a Jim Dine technique for the background to keep it visually stimulating, i liked the idea of now worrying about the colours within the colours, for example if you look at some of the yellow boxes you will see some blues, pinks and browns mixed in almost carelessly, but it did give off a nearly 3D effect, however if i were to do a similar background in the future, i would not use the dabble technique, it doesnt look right so i will keep it smooth.

Then I had Julian Opie faces, or tried to, with the very limited details on the face, it was almost the exact effect i wanted, though i wish the lines were darker. One thing i am disappointed with is how small i made the faces, yes i wanted the background to be visible but now there is too much background, so for my next idea i will make sure to make the characters alot bigger!

I have decided to keep the lips big and exaggerated as my sort of signature mark that people may recognise.

This was from an argument between Danny Dyer and katie hopkins in which he called her a tampon with a face after she lashed out at his fiancee

“Last one.....as I'm in a jolly good mood.....imagine if a tampon was to have a face......@KTHopkins happy Tuesday. ;)”

I erased the last head and body because of my previous review of it being too small, though the lips weren't as realistic, but in my eyes it looks like he is pouting which is funny to me.

From some research i did later on I went back and edited the background so that it would have these thick black lines, however i found it blended in too much with the lines in the faces, clothes and tampon. I would need to take this into consideration for next time.

In a tweet from Katie Hopkins she said that if Ed Miliband was voted the new pm she was going to leave the country, i found this funny because some people on the internet would then intentionally vote for him to spite her making it a possibility.

I first decided to blend some colours,  thought that this effect looked interesting and simple, i dragged the brush off of the page in a curtain angle and added a bit of colour each time without cleaning the brush, though this also lead me to another idea;

I decided to try and make a universe, seeing though Ed was stood on the world with Katie running away, it would only make sense for their background to be the universe around them, though this makes it too literal, so instead i tried to find a different background type in which it emphasises the people and does not make them blend in.

 To simplify the background i used a technique of another artist; Kim Moore, one of her techniques is to scrape paint onto canvas with a spatula, giving a textured effect which i wanted to try and replicate, I think the paint was too watery and you could still see the failed attempt at a universe in the background lightly, though i do not mind it, it gives an added colour, i had fun using the spatula though i do not think i will use this technique again.

However, when I left it to dry it dribbled from the angle it was at, though it looks interesting, it was not what i wanted to happen.

This one is not finished however I tried to do a different background to the first image, trying to use black and white to emphasise the colour in the foreground however i am not sure it is right, perhaps i will keep the idea for a future design except keep it more the patch work style of Jim Dine instead of the floating TV screens we see here.

I did learn from my mistakes last time and made the characters alot bigger to take up more space, even giving them a more unusual position to make them more visually pleasing.

This Idea is from a celebrity argument between Katie Price and Katie Hopkins, in which Katie talked to the press saying 'I bet she doesn't even wear face cream' which i found hilarious because it just wasn't the sort of back talk you would expect. At the moment it seems to be a series of Katie Hopkins seeing though so many people make ridiculous comments.

I do think i will stick to celebrity arguments or social networking posts for my final piece.

I decided this would be my final piece once finished.

Here is the finished piece, i decided to change the background to grey so that it did not draw attention from the main image however i also changed the lines to white to make them stand out against the black

Stories

A spider was granted a wish by a witch, the wish was to be human and to smile, the wish came true however he was not entirely human, and those whose eyes set upon his mutations and deformities would scream or become repulsed by them. He quickly hid away from prying eyes, working as an undertaker. though with time, work was unknown and his money decreased.
One day a vampire baron came in, a glass cross held to his chest rendering him unconscious. undertaker had never seen such a strange human, the people who brought in the baron demanded he be buried very deep and with the cross untouched, however once they had left he saw the burns on the barons hands from the cross and took the cross away almost immediately after the vampire woke, he did not hide from undertakers appearance, instead he embraced him, calling him a hero, even crying into his suit. The next week on the same day the village people came to his small house with money they had collected together as a thank you to him, this made the spider smile, and they say he kept smiling.


This story would be hard to put into a comic in this format as well as the end of the story, sounds like it is being narrated. to change this I will need to work out the starting point for example  how the spider got to the witch .  there also needs the middle point where it seems more dramatic as that is how stories are usually written, usually start with a pleasant beginning something goes wrong something yet worse an and then something gets better at the ending.

Changed to;

The story starts off with a spider with two legs clinging to a rose, a witch saw him and smirked wickedly before asking what he thought he was doing, he replied quickly with 'I wish to be human and to know what it is like to smile' the witch scoffed at the request trying to shake him off the rose.

The Witch chuckles at his determination and granted his wish however he was not entirely human; his lower half was still that of a spider and restricted his movements. The witch then told him that he must work for her as an undertaker until he smiles or shows how brave he can be.

One day a woman woke at the undertaker’s house, blind and completely confused where she was, Undertaker had been tasked with looking after her until she is fit to leave or just whenever she will leave his home. The woman was a chatter box and talked on and on about little things undertaker couldn't understand, she gave him a nickname because 'undertaker was too serious’, she gave emotions to the plant by his side as if it were human even though she could not see it. He asked how she was happy, she tells him that she knows the witch is kind and will one day she will be able to see, Undertaker asks what it means to be kind and she replied with ‘Its to make those around you happy, and to smile’ Undertaker looked wishful her words be true.

But after a while his serious side melted away when Gloria began emotionally revealing her dreams to him, she wishes to be a florist, undertaker likes plants, he glanced to the flower at his side remembering the day his wish was granted, he wasn't crying, but then again he had never felt so strongly about anything, but yet this woman, who does not even know what the flower looks like, has already given it more than he had, it moved him in a way that he called upon the witch while Gloria was sleeping, he asked for yet another wish, to give Gloria his sight. The Witch cackled at his request but did not refuse, before his vision faded he saw a glimpse of himself, he had human legs, the brave request of helping someone he only just met broke her spell and he was free. He woke Gloria who began to cry when she saw his face and hugged him tightly 'stupid!' she shouted 'why would you do this?’ Undertaker was confused 'are you angry?' he asked 'yes of course I’m mad! What are you going to do now?' Undertaker just shrugged... 'Can you describe the flower to me now?' Gloria looked at the flower on the desk and nods; the last page is undertakers face smiling softly.

The story starts off with a witch trimming a rose bush when she sees a spider with only two legs holding onto the rose for dear life, she smirked and asked what he thought he was doing, he replied quickly with 'I wish, I wish, I wish to be human, and I know you can help me' the witch scoffed at the request trying to shake him off the rose.
The Witch chuckles at his determination and granted his wish however he was not entirely human, he was not entirely human, his lower half was still that of a spider and restricted his movements. The witch then told him that he must work for her as an undertaker as to not scare people as well as telling him that he must complete every job before it leaves the door or the spell would break.
One day a woman was brought in while undertaker was trimming his own roses that were growing on the side of his counter. At first the undertaker was sceptical of her still warm brown skin, and soon realised the woman was alive, he argued with himself, it was not right to prepare this woman for burial just so he could remain human though he did not want to upset the witch. he waited till the next day convincing himself that one day would be enough, it was. The woman awoke to see him and she was very shocked, but not at him, at how she had ended up here. They began to talk to work things out, he learns she is a florist who was having a big problem with ants and aphids, and she finds out about his spell and how lost he would be with out the job. The woman asks why he would want to stay this way if he could not do what he wanted, the undertaker looked at the rose then back at the woman and he just said 'I don't want to be scared any more' the woman smiled warmly and said 'humans get scared too' she leans over and kisses his cheek, he touches his cheek lightly smiling, he says goodbye to her and as she leaves she sees the light of him turning back to a spider and walks back inside, picking up the rose in its pot and walking home with it, little undertaker holding onto its petals. 'your hired' will be the last page.

its a story of a reaper who fell in love with a human, and when she died she begged to continue living, he bargained with her that he would give her his heart so the next time she dies he could have her soul so they could be together forever. however, the girl soon fell in love with an angel who gave her immortality so the reaper could never have her soul

Changed to;
A reaper is in love with a human, and one day she gets into an accident and pleads with him to let her live, the reaper then offers her his heart in return she would stay with him after death, she accepts. However, he soon learns about an angel visiting her from the girls family who he frequently hides with when he needs peace, he began to get nervous and jealous, fearing one day the angel would make her immortal, keeping her forever out of his reach. 
He visits the girl in the night and tells the girl all he had been feeling, she put a finger to his pale lips to make him be quiet and simply said 'You are the Angel'.
The reaper had been so wrapped up in his own jealousy he failed to realise how much time they had spent together and cried.

 I do not think I will be continuing with the story, because  it would be too easy to portray as well as it being too boring to read, not in the sense that nothing is happening but more of a sense that  it would feel dragged  and other than drama in the middle nothing else really happens as well as the witch would have no part in it, breaking the consistent chain within my comic series.

its about a vampire who could turn into a snake, it is said to lure its prey in with honeyed words and promise of more before eating them whole, changing its voice or clothes to then suit the last victims. However its only weakness being True loves kiss, as they believe they are the scariest, a kiss would leave them stunned

Changed to;

Follows the story of a woman who wanted to become a model, but because of a little mix up with papers she could not get a place. To take her mind of the stress she goes to a near by bar in an attempt to drowned her sorrows but meets a man who is equally has upset

After a group of woodcutters mysteriously vanish, another group goes to investigate, but end up attacked by a monster. People who are bitten or who harm the creature are infected by a disease that turns them into trees, leaving one and an infected friend to solve the mystery. They find out that the trees that the woodcutters had been cutting down were a sort of nest for the creature and it had been on the defence since the nest was covered by fallen trees leaving a single egg left which they try to move deep into the woods, the infected friends hardening skin was breaking way as he ran but eventually made it to the middle with the healthy one, they great each other only to find out the healthy friend is fatally injured, they embrace each other till the end and the infected one caccoons his friend within his bark and they both protect the egg passed their death and no more lives were taken


The story is dramatic, and I think it has  a lot of potential,  but it seems a little too complicated for  my comic which  isn't necessarily a bad thing, however  I do want to change quite a bit of the story so they will link more to what leads the witch to make these monsters and/or why her wishes are thrown so easily.


-edit-
A hunter complains to the witch that his forest was being cut down and wishes that the woodcutters would leave or that the trees would grow faster, the witch contemplates his wish and soon comes to the thought that her presence would be known to the world if her trees were gone and so granted his wish; by turning him into a small monster which excreted a slime which would slowly turn humans to trees. The next day woodcutters came to cut down more trees they got attacked by the mouse


 I asked for a friend's opinion and what they gave me ways a new idea,  instead of the mouse been something that is already there,  it should be one of the witches wishes that she granted so nicely.

Changed to; 
A man comes to buy a witches house so that his village could grow in size, however the witch refused to sell. The man did not take this well but the witch just sighed and dismissed him. The man left but once he was back at the village he planned to hire a team of woodcutters to make swift work of the thick forest around the witches house, however his son was becoming jealous of his fathers attention being entirely on the witch and the forest.
He then sneaks out of the house to visit the witch, asking for her to help him, she mutters about being too nice and says she will grant him one wish if he would help her stop his father, the boy agreed and said that his wish was to become a 

There is a page where an axe touches the bark of the tree
The man's wife runs up to him, tears streaming down her face and tells him his daughter had vanished. He was enraged and told the villagers that the witch was going to steal everyones children and they all began to storm to the forest when they heard loud crashes from behind them, a monster was tearing apart their town, the man tried to rally the villagers to go after the witch to get his daughter back but the villagers ran back to defend their homes.
The man was about to fatally wound the monster when he saw a necklace on its neck that belonged to his daughter, he bursts into tears cursing and shouting 

Story inspired by the Joke
what is a sheep without legs called?
a cloud

T-shirt

I looked into Artist Julian Opie and his simple way of making faces and tried to do the first designs for my logo with that technique

His work; 

What I did

Though quirky these designs didn't give the effect I wanted, so I started thinking of fun play on words

Here are Shirt designs- or maybe even logo designs for my brand

I imagined that this logo is for girls 13 and below, the friendly pink pigeon would need a male counterpart which will be blue as a steriotype, but because this is the target audience, and does not actually say boy or girl on it can easily be for bother genders.

I took a vote in my class to see the most popular one of the 3 designs, as you can see the top design won by a land slide, however I think the pigeon is a little too big for the text and will be corrected later on.

These Designs were for the second logo, Groovy Goose is for adults from 20 and up.

Here are my text practices for Duck logos, I have settled on Devil Duck, as it would be the simplist to understand and to draw out, I have no idea how i would have managed to draw a dyslexic duck except moving the letters around or making it hard to tell the letters apart, and demon duck would just be a longer version of devil duck, I think it was the right choice to pick Devil Duck.

Here are my designs as well as the chosen text, I decided on the middle one seeing though the vote  was a tie, for this brand i would say the target audience would be teenagers from 14-19, the age of rebelion or being little devils.

research into hidden messages in logos

The Rainbow Apple of 1976-1998

The rainbow apple was scrapped as it was seen as too expensive to continue.

There were rumours that the bite in the apple was showing respect to the 'inventor of the internet' Alan Turing, who was sentenced for 'homosexual acts' which in 1952 were criminalised, he later committed suicide by eating a cyanide laced apple in 1954.

Though they were laughed at as being just “What a wonderful urban legend.” by the creator of the logo Rob Janoff
According to him the bite was simply a play on word for byte, a unite of information in computing.

but there is also something else hidden in that logo, a phone, from the two empty notches to it, the bite and the bottom of the apple.

Personally I really like the logo and how simple yet thought provoking it is, I'm not sure how I would want to add this sort of idea to my work.

More illustrating text than a logo, the arrow pointing from A to Z meaning easy or simple, or just having a range of products from A to Z, but the arrow could also be a smile, which I find an adorable idea, I do see something like this for my brand name, I do like using illustrating text from time to time.

As well as the obvious there is also thought put into the colour, black writing usually shows sensible, or once again straight to the point, though the yellow arrow shows more of a fun and 'sunshine' message

my brand

This is a sketch i worked on for my product designs for my Teddy bears, the first image i did by hand, the second is when i scanned and cleaned it up a little

my idea was of course to join Shush together, but at the time i had ran out of space on my paper, and so i don't squash the letters i decided to just join them later.

this is what I got after i had gone over my designs on illustrator, i did this on illustrator instead of photoshop because i wanted the nice smooth lines, because I was advertising teddy bears, which are soft and friendly.

the & was merely a practice for illustrating text, showing it as a character as well as something with meaning.

I soon decided that having these seperate brands was too complicated for what i wanted, so instead I came up with making one brand but using play on words as the designs, for example Groovy Goose, Devil Duck, Pink Pigeon and so on would just be designs for the shirts not the over all brand.

Here are my practices and final design, which was done by hand, hiding a bird within the text to link back to my research on logos with hidden meanings

Here are a few of the designs on T-shirts, most I would like to keep except the image below v

An attempt at comedic design however I dont think it looks as good as the others

T-Shirts

Weird fish

I personally love weird fish designs, and their logo, which is easily recognisable as a weird fish.

or a skeleton of a fish, the sketchy writing is also weird in a sense it seems hand written with a slightly shaky hand.

'Live Life Your Way'

A very positive message to send out, and catchy, people may subconscious remember the quote but not link it with weird fish as i do.

http://www.designious.com/t-shirt-designs

This website has many cool designs to buy, they are not all characters, which makes me think i should not box myself in with only caricature designs, i will probably come back to caricatures with time but right now i need to broaden my search

http://www.redbubble.com/shop/womens-tshirts?ref=home_leftnav & https://www.etsy.com/uk/search?q=t-shirts 

Redbubble and Etsy are both better known to me, though they do not all look into T-shirt designs only, which is what i like about them, usually their are alot of work based around certain fandoms (fans of TV programs or webcomics/videos on the internet) for example a character on a T-shirt will be from that particular show or be 'fan made' E.I. based on the universe of the show but not in it.