Writing a comic is great, but as we all know, it’s the art that turns a script into a graphic novel. I’m fortunate to be working with some great artists on this project and I’m more than happy to show you what the initial character design process looked like for me. To make life a little bit easier, I designed the characters in the script but also made a cheat sheet for my artists when they went to do the character designs. You can see that here. The example I’m using for this is Braxton Kain, but all characters had their own. Braxton’s design was also unique, because I changed a lot at the last second before I sent it to Charles. This also gave him more room to run with the design. Depending on what you want, you might give very specific details or an overall idea for your artist to understand. Once you’ve given your artist the initial character description, the next thing that results should be the pencils. For me, this is where I first get to see everything come together, especially with all of the extra details that Charles would add. I also might give some adjustments, but in this case, I didn’t have any. Note the things like piercings that he added to bring more detail to the character. After the initial pencils comes the inks. This is when an artist goes over the pencils to make prominent black lines and makes any changes needed. You can see some of the fine tuning here. Note the detail of the braids is really seen here in the inks. The last thing that happens for a character design is the coloring. In this case, my colorist Ramon added the colors based on the initial guide I gave him. The colors should be added to match the tone your book is setting, whether dull and dark or vibrant and colorful. Note the decision to match the lipstick to the hair happened at this point.
Hopefully this gave you a nice taste as to how this process works. I hope to share even more of the process in the book itself once it’s complete!
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I think it would be an understatement to say we lost a giant. Stan Lee lived an amazing life and left a legacy in Marvel, creating the X-Men, Black Panther, Iron Man and so many other iconic heroes. He was a true trailblazer, unafraid to write about what he believed in or what might be considered controversial at the time.
He wrote stories that represented people, and not just one type of person, but all people. He shaped generations, highlighting his craft and medium in the most astounding way. He will be missed. I never met Stan Lee but I think if I had of, I would have let him know how much the characters that he created meant to me and how they inspire all of us to be super in even the littlest things we do. In honor of Stan, I have to give a shout out to a book he wrote that has helped me tremendously. Stan Lee’s How To Write Comics is a great book to read if you have a story but aren’t quite sure what to do to get it made into a comic. It helped me as I was starting the road to publishing and gave me a lot of solid advice that I use to this day. Maybe you can’t meet Stan but he sure can still impact your life. Stan Lee will forever be an icon in the comic and superhero worlds. We are saddened to see him go and wish his family peace in this time of grief. Do you ever wonder what your favorite heroes jam out to? Wonder no longer! We've taken the time to develop Spotify playlists for each of the main characters in Shadow Agency. (Some songs may contain strong language).
Maybe you like Hip-Hop like Liam, Rap like Braxton, or Indie Alternative like Raheem, or maybe you just want to find out what they like to listen to. Check out the links below to find out what each of their tastes in music says about them: Liam Parrish's playlist Elle Symone's playlist Konstantin Ambarnikov's playlist Clara Pointe's playlist Raheem Falkoury's playlist Braxton Kain's playlist The Element's playlist If you like the playlists, feel free and let us know! Also more updates of the process of creating are soon to come.
Here's something fun, I put together a quiz on PlayBuzz so you can find out which member of the Shadow Agency you are. Feel free and take the quiz, along with exploring more about each character.
We are officially coming full circle.
Welcome everyone to the Endurance Comics blog. Posts will come from yours truly, DJ. Here we will discuss the beginnings, accomplishments, and struggles of the comics being produced. For some of you, you've stuck around since the days of my personal blog way back when and for others you are just joining us for the first time. Either way, I welcome all of you. This blog post should become live once the site itself goes live (let me know if you like the look) which has been a task, but a well-rewarded one. Ever since I've been working on Shadow Agency (we will be discussing the name change for those of you who were around for the American Legends webcomic) I knew the day would come when I would have to manage a website and blog again. Like the mature adult I am, I stalled on doing this as long as possible before launching. Stalling had it's reasons though. I had a lot of good advice given to me (again, I promise to dive deeper into a lot of this in later posts) and I've worked diligently to create the Shadow Agency script, acquire artists and get things together to submit for publishing. Right now, I'm very confident in what I have and who I'm working with, so it's time to start getting blog posts and whatnot done. What does this mean for you? You get a front row seat to the creative process. And when I say creative process, I mean behind the scenes looks at the publishing process, sneak peak looks at designs, along with my personal notes as I continue this journey. So again I want to welcome you to the blog and tell you to keep your eyes peeled for the next upcoming posts. |