[Heathen]

Hey guys, this is my first post.  I've been lurking around for the last couple days while I brainstorm ideas for my first character.

I'm not sure I've settled on one yet, but here's a turnaround for one concept. 



I haven't figured out what his abilities are, or why he has an eye patch, and I'm not really sure I want my debut character to even be a "super hero/villain" type.  But anyway, just thought I'd post one of the ideas I'm kicking around to maybe get some suggestions.  I'll move on to sequentials once I've locked in my character choice.

Thanks for looking.

[PyrasTerran]

welcome Dino Nebitt!

The best impression you can make is having sequentials with your incubator post, so lock onto a character idea and let's see some pages!

The tiny details are less important than you might think at this moment. We didn't get even a clue into how Nick Fury got his eye patch for 4 whole movies, for example.

What's most important is you design a character you feel you can commit to at least a few comics. And the design isn't set in stone, you can always change their look in the future.

So to recap, decide on what you wanna do and sketch out some pages! Based on the design you seem to have a good handle on the basics so that's a plus, let's see how you apply them to panels and backgrounds and a 2-4 page comic

[Heathen]

Hey, thanks for the post, Pyras! 

I hear ya.  I'll see if I can whip up some roughs tomorrow after work, and who knows, maybe I'll get some better character ideas in the meantime.

[Mister Kent]

That's a badass costume--I look forward to seeing more from you

[Heathen]

Thanks, Mr. Kent!  I look forward to having more to see.  At the moment, I'm madly scribbling concept notes and thumbnails in my sketchbook, so I'll post up the thumbnail pages as soon as I've got the scene finished. 

[Kozispoon]

I personally think the deisgn would look stronger and more streamlined without the shoulder tails and bellbottoms, but I too echo the call of comic pages! I wanna see what this guy is all about! Please let him be super into disco

[Heathen]

As tempting as it is to make him a disco fiend, I already had these thumbnails done when I read your comment, Kaiser.   Let me just say, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by where this goes.

Here are the thumbnails for the first scene of the intro.  It's gonna be well over 4 pages, for sure.  I've got the general ideas mapped out in notes, but I have some fine-tuning to do in order to make it all gel.

I'm gonna pull the camera out a bit on the establishing shot so we can see clearly that it's the front of a bank.




Disregard that line through panel 4, I changed my mind about the panel layout there.




Ignore the handgun turning into a rifle between pages 1 and 3.  Changed my mind about that too.

I might add another page between 3 and 4 to get some better Warlock time in before he completely loses control of the situation, but as you'll find out, things are just getting started.

[Heathen]

Two more pages roughed.

[pell]

I really like your thumbnail style, Dino. You said you might add a page of more action. To me, that would depend on how experienced the guy is. If he's a rookie and this is his first time out, I can definitely see things going south that quickly.

[Heathen]

Thanks, pell!  Yeah, I'm not sure, I initially was thinking he'd be an established super hero, since we're coming in on him attempting to stop a bank robbery, flying, in full costume.  This probably isn't his first rodeo. 

Although I haven't actually written any dialogue, I just place the word balloons where there seem to be beats, I imagine him coming in here and saying something along the lines of "alright, you guys are done.  put your guns down, and i won't have to resort to melting your bones and internal organs"  *displays his arcane powers*

So maybe it's like a situation where he's trying to avoid any collateral damage altogether, and this time he catches a bullet.   Maybe the dialogue and/or narration can explain how these things usually go, and he gives them his spiel.  Just spitballin' here.

Anyway, here's some thumbs for the next pages.  I don't want him falling to be too overindulgent, but I'm also playing with a couple different layouts for showing it. 







Looking at them now, I'm thinking I'll have more than enough room on the actual pages to make some of these thumbnails into individual panels, rather than splashes.

[Fearn]

So yeah thats like a LOT of pages. Besides the fact that i tink intro is meant to be 2-4 its probably best to do like a shorter thing? I find creating concise things much harder to execute, but then its easier to do longer things later. Like at the stage youre at i would focus on something that will show off his abilities, character and obviosly his passion for disco

[Animeshen]

This is some cool composition and nice blacks you've got going on here but like Fern said.... its gotta be 2-4 pages, I'm afraid I'm pretty sure you'll get rejected if its more than that ^^;

[Heathen]

This is some cool composition and nice blacks you've got going on here but like Fern said.... its gotta be 2-4 pages, I'm afraid I'm pretty sure you'll get rejected if its more than that ^^;

Thanks for the feedback, guys.  I didn't realize 4 pages was the maximum, I thought it was just a suggestion, with at least 2 required. 

Well, I guess I'll spill the beans on where I was going with this, then.  Basically, Warlock is not the character I'm introducing.  After getting wrecked and crashing into the church, he wakes up in an underground science facility/holy shrine beneath the cathedral.  The scientists and priests there tell him that they've encased his broken body in a new suit of "holy armor", and he is to be the champion of their religion (i.e. a pawn in their pursuit of power over the city).

The suit is covered in small emitters, capable of projecting beams of some sort of light energy that can take various shapes - sword, shield, spear, whip, etc. - by channeling and filtering his innate dark energies into something more radiant.

Needless to say, he's not keen on their intentions, but they brainwash him and force him to do their bidding.

The C-list superhero, Warlock, becomes Cherub, the Light's Hand.

A page from my notebook:



As I said before, I think the page count could be condensed on the actual art boards, since my thumbnails aren't to scale.  But having looked at some other intros for reference, it seems like most people have 2-4 pages of "I'm [insert name], and I'm gonna [insert goal] in Void City!"  *pose!* 

I don't think I could really boil everything I want down into 4 pages, so what do you guys think might be a better intro for Cherub?  I can do this particular origin story as a BB or something later on, if need be.

Or hell, I could table this one and do some totally different character.  I was thinking it'd be fun to do a masked slasher killer or something.  I think I saw somebody had a character that looks like Alice Cooper who's supposed to be a serial killer, or at least that's how he was depicted in one comic, but Void City could always use another one of those guys lurkin' around, right? 

[Kozispoon]

I will always encourage the intro of another adversary/bad guy on Void. We're a quart low on evil here and could always use more!

[Heathen]

I will always encourage the intro of another adversary/bad guy on Void. We're a quart low on evil here and could always use more!

That settles it, then.  Big ol' evil sonofagun incoming.

[Heathen]

Pages on the way.

[Heathen]

Progress on the first page of the intro so far.



Panel 1 will be an establishing shot of the building he's in, I haven't decided exactly where that will be. 

Not sure what the bottom panel(s) will be either.

I'm not a writer, I have no idea what I'm doing or where this is going.

[Wei Ingnan]

4 'pages' is the maximum but you could also double stack your pages or submit 4 pages as your intro and then when and if you get in submit the remainder or even the full comic as a Beyond Battle

please properly size your images however...these last few images are far far too big...Standard Image size for Design Sheet and Intro is suggested to be 1000x1000 and 800x1000....there is no reason for sketches and thumbnails to be as big as you have them

you should also get in the habit of including script and balloons as part of the thumbnail process-they are just as much a part of the final visual....and slapping them on half-assedly at the end is almost always a bad idea

[Heathen]

4 'pages' is the maximum but you could also double stack your pages or submit 4 pages as your intro and then when and if you get in submit the remainder or even the full comic as a Beyond Battle

please properly size your images however...these last few images are far far too big...Standard Image size for Design Sheet and Intro is suggested to be 1000x1000 and 800x1000....there is no reason for sketches and thumbnails to be as big as you have them

you should also get in the habit of including script and balloons as part of the thumbnail process-they are just as much a part of the final visual....and slapping them on half-assedly at the end is almost always a bad idea

Thanks for the tips and info, Wei.  Since I don't have a scanner, what I do is I take a picture of the page with my iPad, and then import that into an app called Procreate, which is sort of like PhotoShop Lite.  I've been using the default page size of 1536x2048 because that's the resolution of the iPad's retina display.  I'll make sure to keep future pages within the 1000x1000 range from now on.

Here's the previously posted WIP resized, and with SFX added:

[Kozispoon]

Pages on the way.

[Mister Kent]

^^ What she said. I really like what I've seen so far--that page is so intriguing sans words.

[Heathen]

Working on a new idea. 





These are both roughs, page 1 especially.  Page 2 will have V.O. and dialogue.

Basically the character is a vampire ninja.  I don't have a name for him yet. 

Here's a character sheet mockup:

[Kozispoon]

Aww, we lost our yellow masked marauder. I has a sad.

[Heathen]

Aww, we lost our yellow masked marauder. I has a sad.

I love that guy, but he was giving me a bad case of writer's block.  But fret not, I don't scrap anything, I'm just exploring options, drawing the ideas that I do have at the moment.

Since it seems like he's struck a chord, I'll spend today brainstorming an intro scene for Ol' Smiley and see if I can't scratch that itch.

[Wei Ingnan]

by all means keep exploring and spitballing...that is what this section is for....and this community is an excellent opportunity for that.....somthing that you almost never get in real life

what it comes down to is you finding/creating a character you enjoy drawing and telling stories with...thats it really...Approvals wants to see your art ability sure but they are more concerned with what your comics are like then your actual character design(thats for your fellow Artists when you get in) and even after getting Approved you aren't neccesarily only constricted to doing comics with just that character there are Beyond Battles and Artist Matches as well.
http://entervoid.com/index.php?action=userguide

those roughs are a good start


one thing to consider is even when you have somthing you think might work.....draw it over and over again many many many times.....this will also shape and change your character design(and help you decide if it is somthing you actually like or enjoy or can practically draw in a comic story with a deadline)