30 August 2008

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

29 August 2008

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:

28 August 2008

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:

26 August 2008

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

24 August 2008

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.




23 August 2008

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:

21 August 2008

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:

20 August 2008

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.



The Misadventures of Batman

Even though I've already finished these particular pages, I want this blog to be a testing ground for my sketches and in-progress work, so I thought it would be a good idea to posted the WIP versions of these pages up here. The finished watercolor pages can be seen in my DeviantArt gallery here: http://romanykate.deviantart.com/



Batman, Robin, Ivy, and CatWoman obviously don't belong to me.

A new sketchbook!

So even though there were plenty of pages left in the white book... I bought one with a nice parchment texture to it and started fresh.

Here are some of the initial sketches for my Jabberwocky story (which can be seen here: http://romanykate.deviantart.com/art/Jabberwock-2-80251881)


Also something worth noting, the linked page made it into the SCAD catalogue this year!

Sketchy McSketcherton

Here's the last of the sketches from the white book. I warned you that I was terrible at keeping these things...

Poison Ivy and Cat Woman:


Here's the initial sketches for my two page Batman story (which can be seen here: http://romanykate.deviantart.com/art/The-MisAdventures-of-Batman-1-80248796). And yeah, I'm pretty sure my thumbnails are illegible to anyone but me...

And here's me and DJ, being dorks:

Obviously Ivy, CatWoman, Batman, Robin, Pidgey, and Pikachu don't belong to me, but just thought I'd throw this little disclaimer out just in case.

So it begins...

Alright, I might be a bit late to jump on this bandwagon, but here goes nothing. I'm one of those people that has a hard time keeping just one sketchbook, because scrap pieces of paper are so much easier to come by in a pinch. But I'm getting better! So here are some sketches from my last book

These guys are characters from a story I'm currently writing about a young time traveler:


And what would be a sketchbook without some life drawing:


Here are my versions of some sirens from Greek mythology: