4AM as it stands at the end of the degree...

So my 100 page comic (50 double spreads) is 3/4 done i'd say. It was too big of a project to finish to the standard wanted in the space of the 2 terms it had while at university.
Here is a screen cap of it so far. It's in order of the story but some pages are missing as i haven't done them yet and some here aren't totally finished (need colouring etc...)

I'm aiming for completion around the end of june...

CHECKPOINT

So the FMP deadline is upon us!

When I started this project it was mainly about finding a way to turn what I love to do, and have always done, in my spare time into a project I can share with people. And I have achieved this to the simple explanation that I am printing books and selling them to the public.

As stated in my manifesto on my tired eyes blog I had lots of plans for outcomes. On reflecting, the main thing i can say firstly is how much i overestimated how much i could get done in this time.
This is apparent mainly in the fact that 4AM isn't a printed as a book yet, as planned. I must stress this isn't due to laziness. The problem lay in this being unknown territory for me and being my largest comic project. Things took a lot longer than expected and it hit a lot of problems, of which these were mainly due to the length of the comic and all the issues that that throws up while trying to keep it moving along consistently.

Other than the slight miscalculation of timings, i feel this project went well. It's been great turning what i love doing into possible commercial outlets. Not only has it made me realise what i want to do illustration wise after uni, but how to go about it and who might be interested. I've not only learnt how to take a idea all the way through the process until you hold the printed thing in your hands, i've found a way of colouring to produce more uniform and looser results; Two things that i wanted to achieve from doing this project as when painting i tend to get bogged down in the details, working on separate layers has really helped that. Other pieces that were part of this project like Numb and the finished character based paintings (prints) begin to suggest to me a market through who has been buying them or expressing interest. My to-be-completed comic, 4AM, has already gathered interest to purchase when completed and i've been promoting it with updates people can read and see on my sketchblog and tumblr along with other social networking sites. Which is gaining positive responses. Along with my promotion book Tired Eyes/3:59AM of which has some completed pages in it to go forth as further exposure when i gave these out at the London Book Fair or to comic publishers i admire like NoBrow and i also have plans to submit the finished comic to Blank Slate book's online submission amongst others.

As far as research went it all started last year when I did my first experiment and research into using some pre-existing characters with Terry, my first published narrative comic. It showed me that it worked for me and lend me further to want to dedicate my third year to the same type of work.

As far as artist research goes, that is an on going and daily thing. It's quite hard to keep track of everything that inspires you, but i attempted to by keeping a book (Inspiration Book) that i filled with any images or pictures of books to act as an encouraging source. Also, upon my shelves i have an ever growing collection of small books and comics after the same vain of which I strive for, both artwork quality wise and simply the format and way it's printed. As quality and simply being a lovely object was one of my aims, these books fill a very important roll. Not forgetting, they also offer a good insight into where i see my work fitting in the market.

I also put a bit on this blog about some of the main influences and books I would like to produce something similar too.

Finding new artists and books I like is great. Not only enjoyable to read but a get resource of inspiration and probably most importantly hope and direction.

Throughout the summer, before the start of my final year at uni, i kept a sketchbook (Stories to Tell) that i filled with storyboards of concepts or narratives to run with when i started back.

When i was back at uni i started a new sketchbook (FMP) that i worked in (and have just filled up the last page of today) full of further development of ideas/characters and towards the end, repeated re-workings of 4AM's storyboard.

Throughout the process and keeping a sketchbook for ideas and experiments, i had the chance to continually evaluate the direction of my work. I learnt and tried out a lot of new methods, silk screen, ink in different ways, looser, neater, detailed, simpler...etc that can be seen through more experimental pieces in my FMP sketchbook and stand alone A3 paintings.
Among other things, on a method level, Numb was an experiment in colouring digitally and doing unconventional and more flowing and visually appealing page layouts.
For 4AM, as well as all the other tests it conjured, it was an over all good experiment in finding a good way to paint a comic in my style. I painted on layers. Most of the time the line-art was on one sheet of A3 and the coloured ink on another.
Around christmas time i needed to make something; A smaller piece to see through to the print and production stage and hold in my hands at the end. Basically a test run as well as a rest bite and a chance for evaluation of my practice/the FMP project's direction. So Numb was created. Taking roughly two weeks from conception to completion. It was a good test in many ways and having a physical piece was a needed development item. Numb was shortly then translated into Engourdi (French) to sell at Angoulême's international comic festival.


After France, i soon realised that i wasn't going to get time to do all the side projects i wanted to do this year before the april deadline and needed to start work on my main book, 4AM. Originally i was aiming for completion of the finished comic for the London Book Fair, and therefore this deadline, but around the middle of march i had to make the call to push back the deadline and rearrange promo plans for the book fair. I regret not having the book finished for this deadline for professional reasons if nothing else, but i now see how the previously mentioned promo book Tired Eyes/3:59AM was probably a better thing to take to london for the purpose of it anyway.

Extending the deadline was a decision i had to make simply for the reason that i wasn't willing to rush and therefore not produce something i was happy with. After all the point for me of 4AM was to try get that little bit closer to something appropriate for the market i wanted as well as finding a way to turn how i paint into a method of storytelling; to make something different, looser and every image a stand alone piece i liked, as well conveying a story with themes and meanings that i had wrote.
I also see the point of this FMP project as the point of your degree where your practice takes over. You do something that you want to do and would do if you could whether or not it was being assessed. For this reason it's okay. 4AM will get done (new deadline is the 20th of may in time for a selling event at London's MCM EXPO and the end of year degree show.) because it's what i want to do. This is just a checkpoint in my practice and process up to this point. I'm looking forward to holding the finished 4AM in my hands and the new projects i want to do after that in a months time.


I have attempted to take a picture of all the work in piles and folders i have done for this project (seen here to the left) but it probably isn't very clear. It isn't feasible to put EVERYTHING on this blog.


For this reason due to the mass piles of paper required to make a comic and an unfinished one at that, i will bring the pile along as well as a USB containing the completed pages pulled together in photoshop for the presentation.


I will also have my four sketchbooks for this module. (FMP, Stories to Tell, Drawings from Life and Inspiration Book).
As well as a folder on the previously mentioned USB of all the revelvant finished stand alone character paintings that aren't on this blog. (This blog had been mainly the experimental stuff as the finished pieces tend to get uploaded onto my portfolio site- emmaevans.net) And the rougher and sketchy stuff has remained in my FMP sketchbook or Stories to tell sketchbook.  Everything is available upon request.


I will bring the applicable other artist's books as examples of where i fit into the market and what i am going for in terms of format too. For actual artwork inspiration some of the books are relevant but the inspiration sketchbook or the influence part on this blog is more useful for that. 

Back to the continuation of 4AM comic pages!

Still Going...

4AM pages are rolling on again!

Stable/Unstable.

So it's back to re storyboarding 4AM. It's probably the 8th time doing the FINAL storyboard or something. So they clearly weren't final ones...

I just wasn't happy it was going to read well enough. Working in such a loose and kind of surreal way is proving quite hard. It's continuously trying to balance 'make your own mind up' between 'unreadable'.

Anyway. I've really got to get back into doing pages. It's just like walking a thin line. Sometimes you just tackle one page at a time and get through them like that and it begins to come together. But other times you topple and loose your way; Thinking of all the pages that need to be done as one thing so you don't know what to do first.

But it's been so sunny and lovely. The past few weeks have been a series of strange events.

 

3:59AM/Tired Eyes

So i'm not taking the completed 4AM to the london book fair. It's been decided.
It's getting fairly obvious that it's not going to be done in time to a standard i'll be happy with to send to print.
It's okay though i think a promo piece will be just as good as i'm not going to sell the comic to punters i'm pitching myself and my work/ideas. Which i can do with just a snippet...hopefully anyway.

The promo piece is going to be a flip over book. With no back cover, just two fronts that you flip over to read the other half. The one half is going to be a few pages of portfolio work and the other a few preview pages from 4AM. Cleverly going to be called 3:59AM (thanks to Joe for the title :D). The portfolio side is called Tired Eyes (after this blog) and there will be a double spread in the middle explaining about 4AM and about me as an illustrator.

So it's on with that for a while. Time to break out InDesign again. Ouch.

A Bit of Rest Bite

Playing with ink.

Limping Along...

Well my major project 4AM is slowly coming along...
I have a more final storyboard now so it's a case of getting through the pages as quick as i can without compromising the quality. CAUSE I AM A PERFECTIONIST.

Hopefully it will all come together in in time. Otherwise i'm taking a promo book to the london book fair instead. There's no way i'm taking this if i'm not proud of it, there'd be no point.

4AM is on....

My main project 4AM is now properly under way. I story boarded this as an animation during the summer but over the last few weeks i've been trying to turn that story board into a narrative comic one instead and then do page page layouts from it. It's proven really difficult to translate the two mediums so that they read the same.

I still am not totally happy with it, but only because there is a lot of pressure for it to be good! I've never attempted something like this before as it's going to be about 40 pages.

Really not sure if i'm going to get it done in time! But there is no way i want to rush it either. So we shall see.

One thing that is bothering me is how to colour it. I thought i knew but i'm not happy with the results. I planned to colour it loosely in ink on separate layers to the line art but now i'm not sure. I don't want to computer colour it. Feels like a cop out and not how i like to work. The whole point of this was to find a way to use how i draw/paint as a comic.

The image above is just a mess around. The image is from the story, but the colouring is not how it's gonna be. Just trying something as a kinda promo...

Anyway.

I've given myself 6 weeks to do all the artwork before i then need a week to arrange it ready for print. Then leaving 3 weeks to print.

I think this all might be a very stupid idea.

Inky Experiments...

Just doing some quick ink thinking...

More experiments...

flatter colours... simpler design and BLUE

ALSO!

Time to get a move on...