Making of Fixed Planet Issue 02 Cover

Originally i think the idea was to try out blue lining here... and maybe inking on the computer. But, as with all my attempts at digital inking, I lost patience and got frustrated pretty quick. I realised that I like the quality of the blue pencil line too much, and wasn't going to beat it... So I worked with it!

 

I made the line black, and set about painting the image up to make a tasty cover image. For this, I worked in black and white only at first, to get the values just right. Once I'd achieved this and the image looked right enough, I added in the colour, some texture and effects.

See the final image here!

Page 11 of Fixed Planet

In case it isn't screaming "obvious" in front of speed lines and calling out for another hit Anime series.... Page 011 of Fixed Planet aimed to mimic a page from the Shonen Jump manga weekly from Japan.

I love how the different stories have a slightly different coloured paper, so this page is tinted green, and textured like the extra thin, newsprint like paper that makes up the chunky omnibuses.

I tried to rough the piece as a complete page, but i couldn't keep the scale in check on some panels, and toatlly screwed the art up on most.

Here's a comp of the roughs before I got to inking:

 

 

Pages 04, 05, 06, 07

The aim here was to combine a few different approaches in order to achieve some nicely stylised images.

The lines are painted with Chinese ink, using mostly flat/ square brushes. I wanted to try and keep the feel of that natural line and the natural texture that comes with painting in inks.

For the colour, I wanted to try using a very restricted and muted palette.

I think it works!

 

Pages 1 and 2

What I really wanted to work on here was my use of pens. Not something I’ve spent enough time with recently or ever. So to get round this, the exercise here was simply get experience in (fibre tip) pen work.

Materials and tools:

Pens – Various pens from fat markers to .05 graphic pens.
Standard A4 printer paper
Lightbox
Found images
Scanner and Computer

This opening part is like a historical re-cap of what as happened prior to our story. I wanted the images and tone to be, therefore, almost news like, or like a film describing a part of history. To achieve the desired feel, I worked very closely with found photographs to try and get a realistic feel. This encourages the reader accept the (somewhat preposterous) parameters of the story as being viable and real. I also wanted to see how I could describe the shading and tonal qualities of a photo in a different way through the density and shape of pen lines. So monochromatically and graphical rather than photo exact and shaded. Also, to add drama, new emphasis was created by moving lines in different ways. For example, see the ladies eyes in panel 3 on page 1.

The earth, and it’s black scarring are a composite of found images.

The colouring and texture details are a mixture of various layers of ink splats and ink paintings that I did (the ink comes back into it in a few pages time). These were scanned in and composited and coloured. While I worked hard to make the images exact and related to photo, I wanted the colour and backgrounds to be chaotic and full of fire, as an expression of the story, and also to complete the images in a fairly logical way.

Cover 1

The cover for “issue 1” (as it were) started off as a simple, quick pencil sketch. After several thumbnails, I decided on one particular design that covered everything I wanted it to whilst also being a strong image in its composition, and remaining suitably ambiguous so as to leave the future story unspoiled.

 

Fixed Planet

My desired techniques to try here were:

1: Inking digitally: this can be seen around the form of the central character/ figure, and in part on the floating orb just under his out reaching hand.

2: Creating a glowing effect on objects: I wanted to create a glow around the planet and over other key parts of the image. Using a linking colour to unify the various areas of the image.

3: Constructing a well working compostion: From the title working down, the eye is lead over the various parts of the image, telling a story.



There are some other little bits in here for the discerning reader. The stars in the background of space for example - for any londonfgsser’s you may notice one is worth £600 ;) – in fact that may be a good competition question to run at some point…

The cover was actually done after the first x3 pages.

Welcome to the making of Fixed Planet

Hello, and welcome.

The Fixed Planet comic/ blog started as a space for me to test out techniques and ideas that I wanted to try. It's tough to sit in front of a blank page/ canvas/ screen and think of what to actually draw/ paint/ create. To get past this initial blocking phase, I decided to write a story. The theory being, that every time I want to try out a new technique, or practice something in particular, I can just start on the next page of the comic.

For this reason, you will notice the style of Fixed Planet changing often and perhaps largely. I know where the story is heading, but not the art. So hopefully, throughout my experimentation, you, the reader will be presented by some nice pictures and ideas to view along the way. So if you're thinking all of a sudden, why does it look like this? It may be that I've drawn it out by running syrup out of my nostrils on to a sheet of perspex and then taken a photo of it. Not that that's a technique I'm particularly interested in trying out...

So, keep checking back here for a little "how and why" on each page section.

Best and thanks.