End of the Day's Work

I finally bought myself a copy of the incredible graphic novel 'Blacksad' this weekend - it's been on my amazon wishlist forever! Everything about it is totally amazing, and I've already started pulling what I like into my pre-production for this film. This background is heavily inspired by a panel! Anyway, here's Dad and Daughter going home at the end of the day's work.

Self-Portrait

A painting from the weekend - I was trying to see if I could draw myself in the style of the characters I'm designing for the film and I got a little carried away! The difference you see between this self-portrait and the one topping this blog is 10 months of artistic development and hair growth! I'm also continunig my inktobers. To the right is a study of the main character from Marvel's 'Daredevil' series that's currently on Netflix - I'm completely hooked!

Background Tests

I've been having some fun this week trying to nail a style for the backgrounds for this film idea. I know that I want shapes and colours to be the focus, but I need to decide how graphically I'm taking that as I do like the fluid style of animation that I used for the sneak test a couple of posts ago.

These would be stills from the beginning and end of the film - in the first still, she's just fallen in love with a boy who lives across the river. In the last still she has to find a way to get to him and maybe a barrel from her apple stall might do...

Inktober and Pre-Production

I'm continuing pre-production and using inktober as a part of it! Each of these sketches was done very quickly in pen in my A6 sketchbook. I'm really trying to work on the shape/pattern idea for the backgrounds at the moment. The era that I'm setting the film in had a lot of brickwork in its architecture and the brick pattern works both as a grounding element and because it's beautiful visually.

I went on a lovely trip to Hartlepool to see my brother this weekend and took the opportunity for some reference photographs. Above is a picture of the historical quay there, complete with masted ship in the background. It might give you some idea of the brickwork look that I'm going for.

We also went to the seaside and I took lots of photos of the water. The film will be set in a port town, so I'm looking at patterns in the water to offset the patterns in the brickwork. The first of my inktober sketches may give you an idea of what I'm going for!