Pencils McPencilton

Finally we're back to my baby, my graphic novel, StrangeHearted. I'm starting to pencil the rest of the original 48-page storyline. The thing you have to remember here is that I pencil small (my finished pencils are only 6x9) and then scan them and blow them up to 10x15. Once they're printed, there is actually a lot of redrawing that happens before I start inking.

Anyway, here are the next five pages of finished pencils that I've done thus far:

Remember, the first ten finished pages can be viewed at my DeviantArt gallery: romanykate.deviantart.com

Avast!

Yarr... here be some sketches of characters from an Oni book by the name of 'Polly and the Pirates.'


The story is about this prim and proper little girl that discovers she's actually the daughter of the pirate queen. She gets kidnapped a couple of times and becomes the new captain of her mum's old ship and has a jolly good adventure saving everyone from certain doom while searching for her mother's treasure trove. Here's a character sheet for Polly in her pirate regalia.

Characters (c) Oni and Ted Naifeh.

Anthology funtimes

Here's the rough thumbnails of my entry for the SCAD Sequential Art anthology. This year's theme being biography, I decided to tell the story of Juan Diego, who saw the first apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico.

Interesting story: Since I was running low on time, I took the thumbnails you see here, blew them up to 10x15, changed them to blue line and inked directly over them. I was definitely a... weird process. But I'd like to think it turned out well in the end. Although, I still don't know whether it got in or not... but I will keep you posted :)

Also, the finished product can be seen in my DeviantArt Gallery here: romanykate.deviantart.com

More fangirlishness

I can't help it. I love Sailor Moon. So here's the Inner Senshi:








Sailor Moon and its characters are (c) Naoko Takeuchi

Back to school

Oi vey it's been a while. There's been a lot going on, so my apologies for the lack updates. Believe you me, I have been working and over the next few days I'll be posting many sketches for your furthered enjoyment. Now, to business!

Sooo my friends music video didn't get selected as a finalist, but I'm still glad that I got a chance to work with her again and the opportunity to add more storyboards to my portfolio. Here are some character and environment sketches from the music video concept:

P.P.S.

By the by, you should all totally go here: http://www.massify.com/pitches/7deadlydiamonds and comment on the storyboards that I drew. Comments will bring more attention to my friend's entry, thereby increasing her chances of being selected as a finalist, and therefore increasing her chances of winning and actually getting the chance to make her video! So run along now and help us out!

If nothing else, at least it'll send some good karma your way ;)

Also worth noting: you'll have to sign up for an account in order to comment, but it takes all of five seconds and you never have to use it again, I pinky-promise.

Even warmer

Here's more SPICE stuff. Fixed the guy a little bit in this first one:


And here's the gussied up second draft of the original sketch from a couple of posts ago:

PS. Sorry I've been noticeably slacking on my updates--I've been working on TONS of thumbnails for my own graphic novel as well as some storyboards for a friend's music video. But I have lots of stuff scanned into the compy now, so I'll be updating more regularly from now on.

Oh them muses

So, it turns out that I forgot about one muse... Erato, the muse of love and romantic poetry. Since I love here almost as much as Urania (and since I'd already done all the others...) I decided to give her her own page:

PS. I know it's been a while, but I had a nice long vacation at home and now, for reals, I'm back to work, I promise ;)

Home on the range

Alright, so in case you hadn't noticed, I haven't been posting. I've been sketching a lot, believe you me. The problem is that I'm currently visiting home--meaning no scanner, no tablet, and no photoshop. Sooo... it might be a while, but in the not-so-distant future you can expect a large update. Until then, adios amigos!

StrangeHearted

So here's some insight on my process when working on my graphic novel. I start out by doing these tiny thumbnails to figure out my page layouts, and I'm still almost positive that these thumbnails are illegible to anyone but me.


These represent the first twelve pages of my story, the rest of the thumbnails I drew directly on the script when I finished revising it for the second time. Aaand on the bottom of this page you can see a doodle of one of my main characters, Dominic.


This is an initial cover design concept for the first book of StrangeHearted:

PS. The finished first ten pages can be found in my gallery on DeviantArt: romanykate.deviantart.com

Getting warmer

Pinup girls are just too much fun to draw.


Here's the finished sketch of one cover design, but there's still quite a bit that needs changing:

Gift horse

These are a couple of sketches that are part of larger projects for friends, because I am too nice for my own good.


These are a couple business card designs for a local dj. The bottom design was given the go ahead:

My heart is a kaleidoscope

Sooo me and DJ recently had a Sailor Moon marathon and needless to say I was a little inspired. I had forgotten how awesome that show really was. The Outer Senshi, soldiers of the outer planets Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, were my favorite characters. Being as inspired as I was, I decided to sketch up some fanart.

SailorNeptune is of course inspired by the Neptune of Roman mythology. Since he was god of the sea, her powers are obviously water based:



Uranus was the Roman god of the sky, so SailorUranus has wind powers, but the attack 'World Shaking' always had me a little confused...

Although the Roman god Pluto was associated with death and the afterlife, SailorPluto's powers are more time-based. She is guardian of the Time Door and has the power to stop time, but her attack is still called, 'Dead Scream'

SailorSaturn is known as the soldier of destruction and silence. Saturn, in mythology, is a god of agriculture, but because he was the god that new when to plant and when to blight the fields, he became associated with death and the silence of winter. In the series, SailorSaturn explains that though she comes to destroy the world, SailorMoon is resposible for its rebirth.

All characters (c) Naoko Takeuchi

PS. The title of this post is based off the English translation of the theme song for SMS... I think DJ is probably the only one laughing

Everything nice

Here's some rough cover designs for an upcoming two-part anthology. One book, entitled SUGAR, will feature cutesy, family-friendly stories while the other, SPICE, will feature more adult-rated stories. Both books will be written and drawn by all girls. I have a little story that will be in the SUGAR book, but I'm designing the cover for SPICE.

These are a few designs that were given the go-ahead by the professor heading the project, but there are quite a few changes to still be made. I'll probably be posting the progress as I go.

The Road goes ever on and on

Finally we come to my one true love: Tolkien and all his works, namely the Hobbit. As you might already know, this classic story is being made into a film to serve as something of a prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy that's already been made. It would be a dream come true to work on these films and I'm currently in contact with some folks that are doing just that. So, in attempts to tailor my portfolio, I've been working on some hobbit-centric pieces and these are some of the sketches that I drew to initially nail down what I wanted the characters to look like in my style.

The door of Bag End is a particularly important setting. Here it is before Bilbo's infamous adventure:

And here's the infamous hobbit himself:

Everyone's favorite wizard:

Also, you might have heard that they're making a second film to bridge the sixty-year gap between LOTR and The Hobbit. I suspect that they're going to involve young Aragorn and Arwen into that mess, so I figured I should sketch them as well. Plus it gave me an excuse to draw pretty medieval dresses:

All characters (c) Tolkien

Gotta catch 'em all

I like Pokemon. I'm not ashamed to say it. I played the game, watched the show, read the manga, and now me and others of like-mind have decided to put together a little story about us... as pokemon trainers. It's been a lot of fun so far and we're still just in the concept phases. Anyway, here's some of my sketch stuffs thus far:

In our little ditty, I'm the flying type gym leader, DJ and Josh are the star trainers, and Lateef is the fighting type member of the Elite Four.

Obviously, pokemon doesn't belong to me--no matter how much I wish it did...

Forever solstice

One of my best friends is a writer and during his last semester he wrote and directed to films, one of which was so badass that instead of working on my own final projects, I sat down and sketched out some fanart. You can find his screenplay here: http://mr451.deviantart.com/art/Forever-Solstice-83104093

Main character: Alecto Callahan


Two of the most awesome supporting characters: Gustav & Veronique

These are Tyler's characters, and as such they don't belong to me.

Hooligans

SEQA Senior Project is based mostly on one's own initiative and project, but there is one project that is required for everyone: a two page story of which only the first page must be fully finished with inks, tones, and at least one word balloon/sound effect. The story can be about anything... what did I pick? A couple in a mini-Cooper getting mobbed by football (soccer) hooligans.

These are the finished inks for my first page (the finished version can be found here: http://romanykate.deviantart.com/art/Hooligans-1-81593770)


And here's the still-rough version of the second page:

Sketchy McSketcherton Jr.

Suprise! More sketches from the new sketchbook. While cleaning them up in Photoshop, I decided to play around with the hues and I actually like how they turned out. That could be handy in the future...

Anyway, here's some statuary from Boneventure Cemetary:


And here are the original character sketches for my graphic novel, StrangeHearted:

My muses

Back to my sketchbook... These were some of my first experiments with brush pen. After I finished up the initial sketch, I inked with a brush pen and (on the later pages) filled them in a bit with the grey brush pens as well.

The muses are such elegant characters and I had a lot of fun playing with their different attributes and personas.