FINAL FOUR PAGES

Creature w/ Cog

 The creature "Envy" from fullmetal alchemist brotherhood is disturbing and grotesque which are qualities quite horrifying which I wish to emulate with my own creature design. the malleability of its form is also great and respresents hybrid matter how I imagine it to move.

 Venom is a great reference as the build and shape language of this particular iteration fits perfectly for the kind of situations my creature will need to perform.

page 21 - 22

So page 20 plans to have a lot of storytelling elements in the montage like background to show the twins development over the years. This will require some time but I believe that because it is a flash back that the lines can be rough. the cleaner the lines the longer it takes me to complete I have discovered.

Revised Page 20 layout

page 15 - 20

[page 20, finished nov 2]

page 15 - 19

[page 20, finished nov 2]

trial and error

 I had a difficult time with this pose and perspective for this panel where cypress punches a guard through Mara's Cell wall. I wanted to communicate the impact that the earlier poses were lacking quite severely.

Pencils

page 09 - 14

page 07 - 08

Page Prototype

Page prototype with finished lines more or less. Really exciting to see it coming together.

mech arm

I attempted to finally tackle designing Cypress' Mechanical Arm, based on an early design which seemed to be going well but in redrawing it it lost a lot of the organic elements and felt too solid. I wanted the design to appear more ergonomic and organic to a human arm. I went back to basics looking at the muscle structure to help aid me but I ended up with the winter soldier/collosus arm design which I am not very impressed with. I feel an alternative is achievable but I will take a step back and continue with other aspects of the book instead of getting hung up on this element and halting production.

Color testing

I tried testing out coloring methods. On the first panel I coloured the environment using a textured brush I made. It makes the panel have a traditional feel to it which is really nice and pays a sort of homage to earlier comics.
The bottom panel is done using flatter colours and appears a lot cleaner, this method would rely heavily on the lineart to carry the appeal for the panel though. However the modern look is really nice and brings out the lineart more.
I will continue to find the balance in between these two aesthetics as they both bring a certain look that I really like and think would fit the narrative well.

tattoo studies

cypress tree concept that shows contrast, reflects the way I am telling the story with the dark on the bottom and light on the top half.

tattoo of the demon Mara from Buddhist lore

Concepts apply astral designs to represent wonder and future, organic plant designs to tie to the theme of organic/nature vs tech and show the contrast between tech dependent vs not. Applying the cypress design and Mara demon. Lost on her knuckles because she is unsure of who she is and where she came from.

testing out how the last design looks on the character in the book.

It looks quite appealing even in black and white as I had planned to have lots of fun bubblegum coloured designs but the tattoos from the original concept last year had little to no meaning. I found that the tattoos presented an opportunity for more story telling.

09/10 cypress panels