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Mar 17, 20214 min read

Portfolio - Comic Strip

My previous portfolio images I made contained some of the constellations as characters, which is a theme I've been using in my artwork for a few years now. Part of this is my goal to create a story about all the characters I design.



During college one day, I started toying around with an idea involving some of the characters. This idea turned into me drawing out a comic on an A4 page during the lunch period and adding to it every spare chance I got. This turned into a plot point involving these characters that I've toyed with for a while now, as the story involves a lot of mystery and investigation.


Above is the original comic I drew up, which I decided I wanted to take into Photoshop to trace over the lines.



Here's how it progressed. My process wasn't as linear as this after I'd completely coloured the characters. I first coloured the backgrounds and then shaded them and the characters. The final thing I added was the text for the sound effects.


I'm particularly proud of the computer screen images, as I had a lot of fun layering up different blocks of colour to create a 'glitching' effect.



The last thing I implemented were the speech boxes and text, but here's a version of the image without them. Above is also a larger version of the monitor with the Morse code. The symbols down the side are to differentiate who sent the distress calls, most of which were designed by me. Most of these designs were made easier, as many of the characters are related to or affiliated with each other in some way in the narrative.


The top symbol was based off the Pisces astrological symbol (♓︎), as I decided when designed these two characters that Pisces and this other character (Cetus) would be siblings. I used the basic frame of the Pisces symbol and added to it to create a 'trident' shape in the centre of it, which sets the two symbols apart.


This was also the case with the next constellation down, which is meant to represent a lyre. The lyre/harp constellation, Lyra, is sisters with Libra, and thus when I originally designed them they shared various traits, and are almost 'mirrored' in appearance. All designs for these characters are on a previous blog post which I'll link at the bottom of this post. Because of their relationship as siblings, I decided to try and give Lyra a symbol similar to that of Libra (♎︎), which also gave me a point of reference. I flipped the 'horseshoe' upside down and turned it into a three-stringed harp.


The next symbol had no point of reference from another astrological symbol. This is because this symbol is supposed to represent Carina the keel, which is a constellation that used to be part of a larger boat, the Argo Navis. This is a character I want to redesign and pay attention to in future, as she's the captain of a ship with a crew which is something I want to explore (maybe by giving the crew a traits/attributes in common). I decided that I'd design a symbol for Carina would be an entire boat in the simplistic, geometric style of all the other symbols thus far.


Finally, the symbol at the bottom chat log is the most recognisable, but I managed to disguise it with filters. This symbol is the only one I didn't have to design, as it's the astrological symbol for Scorpio (♏︎), which in this case represents the character, Scorpius (the official name of the constellation).



Here is the final comic. It turned out far darker than I thought it would be, but I like how it turned out. I tried out a new style, which I really like. There were a few issues with shading and highlighting, but other than that I'm really proud of myself for creating this.



Here's a clearer version of the Morse code. This was the main focus of the comic for me, and what I centered the narrative around. The idea of using Morse code came to me after I listened to the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild soundtrack. The dungeon/Divine Beast soundtracks all feature Morse code, and enhances the storytelling of the environments. I fell in love with the atmosphere that was created simply with the Morse code faintly in the background of the themes, so I decided that I wanted to depict a plot point of the narrative featuring the constellations with the same idea.


Listening to the Vah Medoh and Vah Ruta themes was the main inspiration for the plot of the comic. Out of the four themes, they are the saddest and hold the most desperation, which I wanted to convey in the Morse code messages sent out by various characters.



Here's a small snippet of what would come next in the story, which above is stated to be a mystery/journey to discover what truly transpired in a battle 50 years ago. This is all explained in the comic's bottom right panel.


Overall, this was an immensely fun yet demanding project, which challenged me a lot to be more creative with my colours, shading techniques and even had me trying to create reflections in windows. The last one is something that wasn't overly successful and something I want to practice. Using the constellations as inspiration is something that I'm really enjoying, so I will create more work going along with this theme.


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