Character Designs

I've been doing some character designs the last two weeks for a very short comic I want to try to do. I have never done a comic before so this should be interesting. I'll post more about the comic at a later day. Thanks for stopping by,

-Tim

The Escape

The final installment in the pirate set is called the "Escape." The two pirates landed on the island, found what they thought they wanted, and now are trying to escape it all. Unfortunately their ship is being destroyed by a Kraken and they had to choose their life or the gold. They decided to empty the treasure chest out and make a break for it, using the chest as a boat.

Like I mention last post, I wanted to make sure to have the horizon line stay the same through out all 3 illustrations, which made it a bit tricky for the composition. The second thing I wanted to make sure is that their character traits carried along through out all 3 pieces. The biggest issue I had on this Illustration was the Captain. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted him sitting in the chest or standing in it.

Once I figured that out, his silhouette was the next challenge. It seemed no matter what pose I put him in, his silhouette just wasn't clear enough. After doing some life action ref, I landed on a pose I was happy with.

Thanks for stopping by,

-Tim

Pirate Arrival Illustration

After attending Motor City Comic Con this year I was commissioned to do two new illustrations that added to my original Pirate Illustration story. The two added parts of the story would be the Pirates reaching the island, and then the Pirates trying to escape the island. This is the first part where they arrived.

I wanted to make sure the theme stayed the same through out all 3 illustrations by keeping the characters and their traits through out. With the Captain consumed with money, he is twirling a golden coin on his fingers while his Second in command is busy checking out the mermaids. Both are to distracted by everything they want that they don't see the octopus pulling away their boat off into the ocean. Another small thing I wanted to keep the same through out all 3 illustration is the horizon line in the background. I wanted to make sure that it was in the same place through out all 3 illustration. 

After the first initial sketch, I worked mostly in Sketch Book Pro. When I was happy with the characters and environments, I printed the characters separate from the environment and did a quick tiedown with a red pencil. After that I scanned the images back into Photoshop and did the inking and coloring there. 

Getting the poses down wasn't to bad this time around, though this time I did use some of my own live action reference. Keeping the characters on model did turn out to be a little tricky for this illustration, I had to go back a couple of times to tweak features here and there.  

Next week I'll be posting the second illustration. Thanks for stopping by,

-Tim