Hey folks!Just dropping in to give a quick update on what I’ve been working on. So lately (meaning the last few months) I’ve been thinking of ways to find a vector for my art. What I mean by that is that I want to have a clear direction of where I’m going with my art journey—not just doing random drawings here and there without any definable objective (although random pieces are good to do now and then). One of the biggest questions that I find myself facing (and consequently other young artists that I talk to), is where exactly am I going with this? This…art thing. What am I doing with it? What is my purpose with it? And for me specifically, how can I bring glory to God and show others how amazing he is through it? I believe I’ll be working through these questions for a while, and I believe that they will become clearer in time. But one thing I know is that it is good for me to work on a solid project. A project that has a beginning and an end, that carries more meaning and weight than a simple doodle or drawing done on a whim. And a story achieves that perfectly.So, I’ve been working on a short-story comic. Specifically one drawn to the lyrics of a song. There are several good things about this: A.) I don’t have to worry about writing the story, and instead can just focus on illustrating what I envision in my head B.) Continued practice in comic creation C.) Sense of accomplishment on something larger than just a stand-alone drawing. Since the story is not my own, I won’t be able to sell the finished comic, but it’s really alright. In the end, it’s just nice to have what I envisioned for this song down on paper for others to enjoy.The song: Dave the Moon Man by LooperIt’s a good song that I’ve been listening to for a number of years now. It’s been one of those specially songs that you have childhood memories associated with, and it wasn’t until this past summer that I realized I wanted to give this narrative a visualized representation in the form of a graphic short story. If you have a chance, you should listen to the song. It’s a very interesting story, and I’m excited to share it with you soon visually.
Concept sketches of Dave--still working on nailing down what he looks like in my head; here, he still appears a little too boyish, but he's slowly coming together
I’m currently still drawing compositional thumbnails, but once I finish those, I plan to get feedback from peers on the flow, imagery, and layout of the story before I commit those designs to the finalized pages. I’m still undecided if I want to traditionally ink it and color it on the computer, or do both the inks and colors digitally. I’ll do some practice pictures and see how they turn out.
Sample of compositional Thumbnails (in no specific order); thumbnails are small, sketching drawings that grasp the basic feel for the page layout, flow, and feel of the story and will be redrawn and perfected later. Thumbnailing takes the most amount of brain power, because this is when I'm thinking about how I want everything to look and takes a lot of time, redrawing, and research to achieve the basic idea of what I want to see.