Casting your graphic novel

When I get a story to illustrate, I read through the story and my mind takes me places, I imagine the environment and characters form the text and start to populate that world with characters.

If designing the world is a mixture of research, location, set building, dressing and prop making. Then creating the people that live there is like casting, only you draw not chose your actors.

These are character designs first laid down in pencil and then inked to cast the young boy first at about 8 years old then as a young teen for a story set early 1800’s

Once the casting is in place then its a matter of getting them to act, as in when I draw the story panels that feature the character reacting to the world around them.

Four pages to tell a tale.

This nice little 4 page comic was commissioned by Magic Torch Comics. The story I illustrated, Calasraid was part of an anthology of tales. Colourful art, action with a bit of silliness masks a darker story that has brutal ending. Read this story and many more for free at Magic Torch Comics

KA-BOOM! Superhero Team Character Design!

Another of my character designs for Sustainables Academy, this character named Shatter is made from glass and she informs learners about glass, how its made our use of it and the importance of recycling and cutting down its use.

I wanted to avoid cracks or sharp or broken glass elements to her look, as you can imagine a broken glass look would not go down well in a classroom! When coming up with her I though more about glass and the shiny polished look of glass bottles. As with all the Sustainable characters they are guided by a nineties cartoon series look and hopefully that comes across in the style of Shatter.

Shatter in all her Nineties style glory! Original character created in pen in ink.

Shatter with The Sustainables Team.