Comic Printing - Research

 I already have a good relationship with a comic printing company: CPUK. As I now have two comics in the works, and know the sizes and page count, I wanted to get an accurate quote for printing so that I can look into the viability of sales, and potentially start to think about doing a pre-sale.

Rich, from CPUK suggested the GSM for pages and cover. 

Specifications:

A5 Comic

12pp inc cover

Cover: 170GSM Silk + matt lam outer

Text: 115GSM Uncoated

4/4 colour throughout

Saddle Stitched

x50 = £81 printing cost - £1.62 each, would look to sell for £6.50 (this is x 4 and rounded up of the base cost)

x100 = £118 printing cost- £1.18 each, would look to sell for £5 (again x 4 of the page post and rounded up)

I want to look at similar sized self-published work to see if this is in the right perimeters, however £5 seems like a really nice figure to be selling a small comic at. 

Critique - Digital Process

At this stage in my work I wanted to come back and review my digital illustration process, as it it something that is relatively new to me, it feel important to keep track of my outputs, and weigh up the pros and cons of this decision.

Firstly, I have no doubt that working digitally is the best way for me to (currently) create comic work. The process is much quicker, I'm able to be consistent in my pages that I don't feel I am quite able to achieve with pen and pencil yet.

I can feel my digital work becoming more authentic and second nature to me, though I know there is much to improve, my original sticking-point with moving to digital was losing the textures and movement and I feel like I am slowly overcoming that the more I practise. 

However, I don't feel like thumb-nailing or dummy books will ever be anything other than hand drawn, the looseness and freedom to be messy with pencil on paper, and the inability to overcorrect work (Erasing and redrawing line after line, digitally) has led to some really great discoveries in movement that I have transferred over to the final digital pieces.

I find it difficult to see my work as professional in a digital sense, not something that people will hand on their call or take seriously as an "artist",  whilst I am enjoying my work, and see many benefits to it.

I am also really aware that I am not using my sketchbooks anywhere near as often, and I want to get back into the habit of that. I want to improve my traditional practise, and so I am going to set time aside to fill my sketchbook pages, attend life drawing classes and generally draw more.

A Walk to a Waterfall - Process Update

I have been slowly working on the behind the scenes parts of A Walk to a Waterfall ready for 705, making small adjustments as I have researched narrative structure and picture code, to improve the script and visuals. For example, I have adapted the script to fit the "Circular Narrative" technique; the story starts in a train station platform, and will end on one.

I'm working with a skewed drawing style as a visual metaphor for my mental health at the time, I will also be building in more colour as the arc comes to a more positive end.

I am really aware that I don't want to go 'over the top' with the amount of techniques that I am choosing to put into this piece, as I do not want the story and message to become muddy. However, as a short book, I want to ensure there is enough depth for people to pick up on something new on the second or third reading.

I finished two pages to use in the pitch pack and add to my website. 

Planning for 705

 I wanted to put together a timeline plan for my 705 module, specifically for the finishing of A Walk to a Waterfall; including time for printing.

I've taken into consideration research points, critique, reviews and time to distribute pdf copies to reviewers, such as Broken Frontier. I want to give myself plenty of time upon completion to consider the dissemination of the finished piece, as well as utilising some of the pages for prints.

Riso Printing - Artwork Preperation

Following on from my riso printing workshop, I revisited some ideas I had for a print, and have today finalised the artwork and sent it to Footprint, a local printing co-operative. I decided to go with a three colour print, I created the initial artwork on an iPad using Procreate, and finalised the artwork for print in Photoshop. Below is the artwook in black scale:

The workshop really helped me make sense of the process, and helped in the finalisation of this work immensely. I've ordered 25 pieces, which I will sign and number as a limited edition print! I will be selling these at Printed Bound, as part of the MA Illustration table there on April 1st.

Web-Comics - Continuing to Share my work

A big part of my dissemination method is to implant myself into the auto-biographical scene online, to do this I want to keep sharing small pieces on social media. I may one day put these pieces into a collection, but at this stage I am using it as a way to, firstly, share quick comics online, and secondly explore my ideas in a less permanent and "perfect" way. 

Here is a selection of a few I have shared:

Tips for Anxiety:

 

A Crying Shame - Progress

I've been getting through pages of A Crying Shame at a reasonable rate, I'm doing the link work and colouring at the same time, keeping the backgrounds fairly simple with an intention to go back and add more detail if I want to/have time. I plan to letter it at the end, however I wanted to experiment with this a little and so have added it to the below two images.

I wanted to see if hand-lettering would work, because this is such a personal story, hand-lettering it really fits and I love the way it looks. I'm blessed with being able to take the extra time to hand-letter as this book is fairly short, it may not be something I can do longterm, but whilst I have the chance I am taking advantage of it. The comic will be a mixture of speech bubbles and narration boxes, which you can see below.

These two pages feel like a really good introduction to the concept of the comic too, so I've added them to my website, and will add them to a faux-pitch pack for this project too.

 

A Walk to a Waterfall - Brief and Hook

A Walk to a Waterfall
 
12 pages - Self Published
​
A Walk to a Waterfall explores the hidden battles we fight and the elation felt when the fight is won... And also, how cool waterfalls are.
​
Chloe is taking a solo trip to the beautiful country side in North Yorkshire, England. It's only the second trip she has ever taken alone and she has one activity planned; a walk to a waterfall. With themes of anxiety and sadness A Walk to a Waterfall explores the hidden battles we fight, and the elation felt when the fight is won.

Online Presense - Comics Section

 I wanted to add a 'Comics' tab onto my website, to give more context to my practise, and to make the pieces that I am working on feel more real. I used pages from the books, along with hook and blurb for both books.

This feels like a really simple way to establish it firmly that I am a comic creator.

A Crying Shame - Blurb

A comic about learning to have a cry, and it being okay.

 

A short autobiographical comic that explores the shame that can come with outwardly showing emotions, and how pushing them down for so long is probably not a great solution... but with some work and time, you can open yourself up to all the good feelings too.