front cover

for the front i had only ever imagined something minimal, the idea came to me to echo some of the more abundant imagery of the text, ivy leaves was one piece of imagery that recurred quite often. i want to surround the text with ivy to try and suggest a grave without actually drawing one. my initial sketch (below) was simply an attempt to plan the space i was going to use on the final image, where to place type etc, surprising how close to the final it really is.

after i had an idea of the placement and how it was sort of going to look i started a rough sketch (below). it gave me a good idea of the kind of forms which look best and suggest the shapes i needed. 

 unfortunately it transferred to inks very poorly, there was something very unprofessional about the use of space, liked the detail of the leaves but it just didnt look how i had imagined.

my last hope was to scribble out some abstract shapes and place them together digitally. This way of working has been a staple over the course of this module and has really increased my efficiency in producing visuals, once again i tried it out with the page below and it was a relative success. 

i used the brush in a similar way to chinese brush letting the loading and application of pressure create a lifelike form, loose abstract marks can take on a life of their own when the mark making is considered.

a finished page

this is an example of one of the pages with inks altered and collaged and then text added on top, to further add to the placement of the text and try and establish a clear divide between image and text- assuring legibility. I added a ripped page from one of my old notebooks, it was a creamy slightly off white lined notebook which provided a perfect base for the dodgy type writer font.

 this page is probably the most dense with text (above), it was one of the few pages which really needed dialogue and description to set the narrative up, after that things get jolly quiet on the text front.

the slightly yellow bit in the bottom right with the stripes, thats the page i used as a background for my text having it torn really saved a lot of effort when placing the texture over an image.

text

having resolved the collage placement and general layout of things to a more final standard i could start to think about text, in hindsight this should have crossed my mind right at the beginning. To tell the truth it did, and i was quite content to keep it sparse, having researched the events of the story extensively i had managed to pull some dialogue together. I was quite unsure of what font to use so tried hand writing it out.



Below is my effort, it was written on rice paper with a biro, to recall the evening i did this i have absolutely no good reason why this would suffice, it looks terrible and was a bit of a wake up call as to how to produce text for a document or book.

with my lack of expertise in mind i took to google for some answers, a simple enquiry of 'hand lettered comics' gave me enough of an idea to start properly adding type to my story. the top image is someone using an artists assistant a rotating circle of other shapes for accurately placing marks. the image below is how i eventually lettered my story,  

 to begin with i considered which font looked best in pages, this was a simple exercise of printing the same line and seeing which font best reflected the publication and the dialogue being lettered. of the four fonts i selected american typewriter- the bottom one, there was something about the spacing and old school nature of the font that i really desired.

once this page is typed out, i printed it, laid some layout paper over the top, inked with black fine liner and then finally scanned and manipulated the excepts of text. below is one such page, the main advantage to doing it this way is purposefully text could be off centred poorly copied, smudged, all to add to the warmth of texture and over aesthetic quality.

collaging the inks

once i had the inks digitally processed and cleaned up i could begin the collaging phase, in my mind i had only imagined this part and not experimented with the sort of textures and collage to use, however i did have a fairly good idea of what aesthetic i wanted to promote. Rather than cover the document in layers of textures i wanted to use sweet wrappers and bags in place of dialogue or in supporting it, I had also planned to have a map of the town incorporated some how. My main reason for adding the college is the fore mentioned master illustrator Dave Mckean, his work especially on Violent Cases has inspired for the best part of five years i saw this as an oppourtunity to explore a similar range of texts.

 the scene above involved two of the girls who had been given money for sweets, thought the texture of the paper bag was enough to suggest what they had spent their afternoon doing. It went through a couple of altercations, below was my original idea of how to collage, in a critique my tutor suggested vertical lines with the serrated edge showing to best suggest the kind of paper it was supposed to be. looking at the two together i have to agree, the vertical lines almost suggest that they are falling into the paper bag.

i don't know why i initially thought horizontal perhaps it was because of the likeness to a picnic blanket, however i am aware of the error of my ways and far more content with the resolve it is currently at.

this was the first page i decided to add any extra marks or digital collage to, i knew that i wanted to fit the map in somehow, and although it is quite small alton is in the centre. i didn't happen to find an antique map instead i overlaid a envelop complete with masking tape to add some colour and age to the map.  i am fairly happy with the placement and how this page reads although the text has since changed ever so slightly.

narrative inks

With the majority of the story sketched out and panels considered i could begin the inking process, at the start of this module i was introduced to a brilliant paper stock found in layout pads. You can slide your pencils under the paper and it remains a strong white with a semi transparency, this made inking the book a very quick and fairly pain free exercise, any sections or panels which weren't quite right could be very quickly sketched again until the end result sufficed.

 once i had inked the full 12 pages i set about working out which bits needed touching up and trying to visualise if and how i could make collage and dialogue fit into the design.

aesthetically i was very heavily influenced by Mike Mignola's work on hellboy, the graphic chiseled quality to the tones and shadow, Michael Lark's work on Lazarus and daredevil for its oriental and impressionistic mark making qualities, and Dave Mckean's Violent Cases and The Savage, the range of mark making again was very influential as well as his use of colour for suggestion and mood

 some of the panels i took it upon myself to redraw, either because the pencil drawing was too sloppy so the inks turned out naff, or i slipped with pen when inking. This whole project came together so fast almost solely down to the Pentel GKFP, an amazing brush pen that allows for unparalleled efficency and quality of fill, i ended up draining four cartridges of ink on the whole project seemed to run out to fast.    
  

Narrative

with the two other projects fairly close to finished i have decided to turn my attention to the narrative project, with the initial storyboards complete and references of my budding models things could get underway. My first step was to pencil out the scenes again with the reference to inform the sketching further, i had been fairly thorough when considering placement and narrative progression this saved me an awful lot of time when throwing pages together.

 this opening page was an effort to introduce the town, saint Lawrence church (above) was something i knew i had to include but that gave me some difficulty when trying to reproduce it. the tankard is supposed to symbolise the breweries of which pump industry and money into the town.

 this page is suggesting the motivation of the central antagonist a truly evil man played by my friend Jolyon, his girlfriend posed alongside as the young Fanny Adams which required some mental altercations to scale and proportions. it was a something of a learning curve but one which i am now slightly better prepared for should it arise again.

 i posed for the characters on this page, when the head of the poor young girl is discovered, it was found later at night in a hop field impaled upon two spikes, quite minor considering the extent of the rest of the attack. It is said the next day the whole town and even tourists just passing through took to the hop field trying to find any remnants, picnics in toe it was seen as a morbid victorian sunday.

final sign

another project that has perhaps taken far too long is the pub sign, i have finally added text to the image and yet again redrawn the mantling, this time to a standard that is in keeping with the rest of the design.

 three very gradual stages of development, the only real change to the image above is the mantling which i cleaned up and made slightly more rounded to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing. However i found the actual mantling itself quite subtle and almost difficult to make out- perhaps because of the line quality. The solution below involved simply dropping some yellow into areas of the design which need weighting with a bit of colour and tone.

 the final font was quite simple, the colour accents again were added with colouring pencil, i quite like the rough nature of it, and how the shade ties in nicely withe reds of the shield and banner at the bottom, if i was to further improve this piece of work i think i would perhaps make the banner larger, and the colour of the flowers more pronounced.

and finish off the belt......