Store

I'm pleased to say that my online shop, Art Nuggets Store, is now online. You can now purchase your copy of Hilt through this service powered by Big Cartel and it can be shipped to you anywhere in the world. Happy shopping!

Supanova Melbourne April 11th-13th

Another weekend, another Supanova Pop Culture Expo. This time it's down in Melbourne, at the Showgrounds in Ascot Vale. You'll be able to find me in The Alley at Booth A85, where I'll be pimping my new comic Hilt, as well as prints. Hope to see some of you Victorians there!

Supanova Gold Coast April 4th-6th

Looking forward to this weekend's Supanova at the Gold Coast convention centre. You can find me at booth A29 in the Independent Press Zone of The Alley. I'll be there selling my comic Hilt with my mate Zachary so come by, say 'hi' and buy!

Hilt - Finished!

I’m glad to say that I’ve finally finished Hilt. It is currently at the printers in preparation for my exhibiting at Gold Coast Supanova (April 4th-6th) and Melbourne Supanova (April 11th-13th). After that I will have it on sale online. More details to come. In the meantime, here’s the cover image.

The Final Furlong

Just a quick post to say that while the blog has been pretty dormant of late, I have been hard at work behind the scenes putting all hours God sends into finishing the comic. Only 2.5 pages to go! I’ll be premiering the printed comic at Supanova on the Gold Coast (April 4th – 6th) and Melbourne (April 11th – 13th). Here’s  quick snap of a some original art to be going on with. Hope you can make it to either/or and pick up a copy. Wish me luck!

Style Tests

This week I'm taking a break from my day job at Defiant Development to blitz my comic in an effort to get ahead on it. It's been a productive few days and is going to be capped by my attendance at ZICS (Zines & Indie Comic Symposium) this weekend. I'll have a table there selling my wares, and will be doing a talk abut my motivation and process I use in my Hilt at 2pm on Sunday.

In the meantime, I thought I might show a couple of style tests. I've always been keen on the heavy black look, bold shadows and harsh lighting, as well as the screentone techniques used in manga. I was looking for a good ratio of striking style to effort put in. The top image used the screen tone masked off to add tones and gradients. The middle version is pure black and white, but has a degree of shading that I've added using a custom brush. In the bottom one I've added colour with a few simple gradients. Click on the images for higher resolution.

In the end I went for the screentone version, the reason being that I can get a lot of mood and lighting effects using it. It would also allow me to do the backgrounds in a lot more simple but effective way than with pure black and white or colour, using fogging and some custom brushes for leaves, trees etc. I think I've made the right choice.

Sample Page

The creation of Hilt continues apace. Having settled on a style, I thought it high time that I let you all have a sneak peak as to what the final product is going to look like. As you can see, I've gone for striking black'n'white. This has a couple of advantages for me. I've always been a great fan of monochromatic art, as it allows the form and composition to shine, without the distraction of colour. Additionally, it means, in theory, a reduction in production times, as well as a reduction in costs when it comes time to print.

As a big fan of Akira, I've always loved the way simple gradients of screentone can add depth. As some of you may have seen on my personal blog, I've been playing around with the technique for a while now. In some panels I've gone a step further, using the screentone texture to shade in more detail. As always, it's a balancing act to get the greatest amount of effect while not losing too much time.

Since starting this comic I've become aware of the fantastic work of Sean G Murphy and his fabulously illustrated comic Punk Rock Jesus. Sean shows how well the screentone technique can be used to enrich black'n'white artwork and is one of the finest examples of it's application outside of Manga.

I'll be posting more artwork and panels as the project nears completion, including some rough layout pages, so stay tuned, and thanks for looking. Click on the image for higher resolution.

Chabal

Chabal is the villain of HILT. A hard and loyal lieutenant of his master, he values the rule of the King over all else. I redesigned a couple of areas of the armour to that seen in the previous post. His face also has a different feel. While doing the layouts for the comic I came across this heavy eye browed look which gives him a certain level of intensity and sternness.

Knights Sketches

When it came to designing the knights, I already had a good idea for how I wanted the villains of the piece to look, particularly the skull motif on the front. I wanted the overall aesthetic of the characters to have rough, wrought look, a hard cold feel to contrast with the more earthy, curvy feel of the clansmen and women.

Fiona

Here is the final design for the lead character of Hilt. I've given her the name Fiona, a name of Irish origin which mens fair, white and beautiful.

She has remained fairly faithful to the original design that can be see a few posts ago, the only changes being those that cleaned up her design, such as removing the straps that zig-zagged across her, as well as removing a layer from her upper body.

The main change is that of her head and face. I never really clicked with the old face, and resolved to overhaul her to give her more intensity. With her close cropped hair, a theme in this comic by the looks of things, and more angular face I think I have achieved this.

Stay tuned for further updates, including that of the villains of the piece. Head over to artnuggets.net to see more of my work.

Horse Concepts

It's been a while since I posted anything, having been working full time. I have started doing the final artwork for the panels, and I'm really excited to see it come together. Still a long way to go, but I intend to post some samples soon.

In the meantime, here are some development sketches for the lead character and her horse. I was keen to get quite a fluid look into the horses hair and looked to the work of the french artist Claire Wendling for inspiration.

Female Warrior Development Drawings

It's been a while since my last update to this blog, but work continues apace on the comic itself. I am about 3/4 the way through the first pass of layouts. Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, or at least the first tunnel, I'm finding I'm giving each page less consideration as I just want to get to the end. As such, I've resolved to tackle a couple of pages as a time, which is helping me to focus. As it stands the comic is going to be closer to forty pages as opposed to the intended 22-25 length. I expect to trim it down during editing after I have the first pass complete.

Onto the drawings features on this page, then. Having decided on the sort of look I was after I did a whole bunch of thumbnail sketches in which I played around with different costume elements, clothing and equipment. This sketching process helped me get to know the character a bit better, but I was still unsure and not totally pleased with her. I resolved to get inspiration from one of my favourite illustrators, namely Adam Hughes. I used one of his poses as a base for the top image and this allowed me to concern myself less with getting the anatomy right and focus on the costume. It was upon finishing this pic that I really got attached to the character and sold myself on her aesthetic.

At a later stage I did the page of poses as I was closer to drawing the comic itself. With these images I am again playing around with subtleties in her costume, her cloak in particular. Initially I was going to have her remove it mid-chase and use it as a defensive weapon, but I have decided that it really helps create a sense of motion as well as making her silhouette distinct to that of the knights.

Warrior - Initial Sketches

The warrior character for HILT started off as a man. As with most of my own concept art, it's a case of having a vague idea of what I am looking for and sketching until I uncover the exact look that fits my preconceptions, that matches the feel I am after. The male version just wasn't hitting the mark and so I experimented with a female version.

 I was attempting to make the character look quite formidable and capable while still retaining some sexiness and it wasn't until the sixth sketch that I hit upon a design that I thought had some potential. What I liked about this design was the fluid curves of her hips and legs against the sharp angles of the fur cloak.

HILT Cover Art

This is the cover for Hilt. I spent quite a bit of time getting the composition right. I had initially intended for a more straight on composition with the warrior at the bottom of the piece looking back at the avalanche of knights chasing her, but decided against this because you wouldn't be able to see her face. As such I went for this more kinetic image.

Having settled on a composition the next step was to do the pencilling. I spent a lot of time on this step with the intention of skipping the inking stage and using the pencil scan as the inks. Unfortunately the scan I got was not suitable straight up for the final art and so a fair bit of tidying up was required.

Once the 'inks' were done it was on to the colour and background. This part of the process is great fun as the image comes together. The final act was to increase the size of the warrior herself. This really helped make the image more immersing by exaggerating the depth. Finally, the arrow was added and puts the icing on the action.

Prints of this cover will be available from my table in Artist's Alley at the Brisbane Supanova this weekend. I will be at Pete & Nick's Art Nuggets booth (booth L2) in Artist's Alley.

Check out my parent blog ArtNugget.Net for more artwork...