"The Soldier Legacy" CFCA Indie Graphic Novel Trailer

The Teaser trailer for the comic book is here, I haven't updated the blog in the last few weeks as I'm waiting for the mini-novel to be printed. Hopefully, I will have copies of the comic in my hand at the end of this month (about 9 days away). In the meantime I am completing my honours thesis and a dissertation on "the making of" the comic book, the research, concept art etc.

Very exciting. Anyways, this trailer is a "trial" of sorts, I would really like to animate this character more in the future, projects and time permitting. Gotta run :)
Paul.

Talking to printers...almost done

Well, the "Graphic Novel" is done. I'm just going through that really fiddly stage of making sure all the pages are the same size, and an oversight regarding the black borders (not being 100% black) meant I had to spend a long time on my very slow computer changing all 48 pages to the right size and colour. Unfortunatley this didnt translate 100% into the linked illustrator files, so I had to spend the next day copy and pasting the artwork back into the files again...*cry*.

Anyways, I'm going to leave the changing of the file sizes for print until I find out from the printers what size/format/bleed area they need.

So now I'm scrambling to get the Blackwing internship moving (page 2 above), and some sort of animated trailer up and finished before the october deadline. The other thing that's going to take time away is the first internship, which was the business plan for the griffith innovation challenge. Barry and I have been notified as finalists, so now we have to prep a 20 minute presentation (and attend the seminars) plus a 3 min. pitch at a gala night (if we get that far...) which is all good, but another project which has to go back on the list of things to do...Anyways, rolling on.

Below is some images for page three of the epilogue that I was trying to work out what looked better in colouring.

Dark blue layer "multiplied"

Dark blue layer "normal"

Dark Blue layer "vivid light" (I think this was one one I went for...didn't want it too dark)

Below: BG colour experiments page 6

Splash page- Epilogue

Almost at the end. About 3 pages of colouring left, then a day or two to letter and edit...Hope to finish before I'm back at work again...

Comic Update and page one internship

Quick update: Kinda neglecting the blogging lately, I'm really under the pump at the moment. Basically, story one is done, edited and changes made. The second story pencils have been finished, all scanned in and page 1 is coloured. Page 2 has begun also. So I'm hoping if I can keep up the pace I can have the second story coloured by next week/week after, lettered a few days after and bascially have the whole comic done by week 8....hopefully anyway.

My only problem is I'm crunched for time regarding the teaser trailer... we'll see how fast I can knock one up when the Graphic Novel is done.

In the meantime I have begun the internship project, page 1 is here until I can post a link to an internship blog (that only exists on pen and paper at this stage.).
Anyways, gotta run.

Completed Cover...sort of

Completed Cover. Not sure what other info I need such as a logo etc, or if I'll put any blurbs on the front, but for now this will do.

Cover 2 work

Still have to colour b/g images, but happier with this cover than the first one.

3 pages to go...

Ok, Three pages of colouring to go before I finish story 1 (Hooray!) . Still have 7 page epilogue to draw (and then colour and letter)....but I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if it is just a pin prick of light...

Had some really encouraging feedback from John Higgins this week who gave a great lecture on his artwork at QCA this week. To get a few minutes of face time with him and Sally Hurst (Principal Designer at their studio) was fantastic and very encouraging regarding the work.

I was pleased when he pointed at a few of the poses throughout the comic and said that he liked those, particularly because it was comic poses that Todd McFarlane was explaining to me to push a little further. Chewy made me think just a little more about the relation of panels amongst each other and being concious of the lines in one not mixing with the line of the next. Also, I've tried to be very sparing in regards to breaking borders, only when to emphasise a certain action or point in the story. Woops, I'm waffling again.

Anyways, a couple of pages here, gotta get back to it. Still have the 13 page pencil/ink job for CFCA and the animated teaser trailer for the soldier legacy book. oh, and the thesis...oh, and the Business plan...and hopefully sleep :P

The Possible cover and some coloured images

Cover above. And I've settled for the title "The Soldier Legacy."
Below are example coloured pages featuring day and night scenes - have coloured 10 pages plus the cover and flats have begun on the 11th. I don't know about the status of the second story; because of the amount of time and work to do the pencils, page prep and colouring (I haven't even considered the lettering yet.), the second story may become an 'epilogue' and the rough pencilled pages could be cleaned up, maybe one or two other pages to make the current ones Ive drawn make sense and go from there. I have two internships (one possibly involving comic drawing), a thesis, series bible work for the innovation challenge and an animated trailer that I havent considered yet (phew), so maybe cutting my losses and making a coloured issue, with 'special features' (and perhaps a grayscale or pencil version included too), could fill out the graphic novel a little too.

Grayscale version.

Progress- Page colouring

ok, quick update.
Penciling for story 2 has paused the last few days while I try and work through two more major projects that have cropped up (stressed as all hell at the moment), but I have managed to colour a few pages between shifts at work.

Colouring (if you've read the experimental project posts) is not my strong point, but they are turning out ok considering I chose to bypass the inking stage. I felt that I would just ruin the look of the pencils if I screwed it up, plus to have to colour and letter this first story and then do it again to the second story I havent pencilled yet, plus my thesis, plus the other two projects, I wouldnt get any of it out... plus the pencils and colour make it look rough and dirty like the environment. (and the inking of the later pages including the soldier fight in the jungle would be a pain to have to ink- especially when I'm not confortable with it.)
Anyways, enough talk. gotta run

Reggie book ideas and an image or two

Page 16 soldier comic

Reggie front cover

Reggie back cover

Beenleigh camera house poster- thank you for the work :)

Quick Update

Just a quick one: Finished penciling for soldier story (about 22 pages), only have a couple of weeks in the schedule to hammer out part 2 which might be the same amount of pages...we'll see. Scanning pages in today, I will post a couple of pages up without wanting to give away too much.
I desperatley need to iron out my internship and formatting information for eventual printing.
More to come.

Getting a feel for colour scheme and text

Colour tests- Vigilante

Animatic Draft: Teaser Trailer for "The Soldier"

Draft Animatic for the teaser trailer. Plan to do slight animation, something to concentrate on towards the completion of the Graphic Novel.

The Silver Surfer ep1 pt1

Jack Kirby/Joe Sinnot line style animated. You can also see elements of John Buscema's run with Stan Lee in The Silver Surfer's first solo series. (1968?). I remember this show as a kid, unfortunately I believe it only lasted 1 season. I haven't investigated it yet, Im wondering if it had something to do with Marvel's Bankruptcy issues around that time.
Ha, the Kree soldiers look like Captain Marvel's original design,

More pages and frames

Already had these completed a few weeks ago, but experimental assignment/presentation and the thesis have taken up the majority of my time. Hoping to kick start the comic again wednesday night. In the meantime, the teaser trailer has to be done...

More shots for teaser trailer animatic

In no real particular order.