Some 3rd Year Comics

3rd Years produce a range of different Comics 

With the course ever expanding, we are always trying to produce different type of art work and getting the student to think more independently. We actively encourage them to develop their own signature art styles so they are able to stand out from the crowd. 
here are some of the work produced in the first semester. 

Akka Moons "Infested" is a horror story about a virus that is running wild in the forest. They style is created digitally after  the initial drawn thumbnails and layout sketches. I particularly like this page as it looks a bit more in-depth with the concept of paneling and what you can use to divide the story up, rather then going to the default method of boxing everything up!  

Ben Bloss's work is also mainly digital once the thumbnails and layout are complete. He has drawn inspiration from Manga and in his Comic Book "The Lonely Siren" he tells the story of a shipwrecked sailor and the unwanted advances of a Siren. Ben uses the page well, preparing the reader for the drop into the abyss. He's recently gone back and reworked his pages, adding shading and shadow to the work which give the whole project a bit more weight.  

Ollie Wharton's comic "Roller Disco" tells the story of 2 young girls who find and lose love at the venue. What is particularly great about this work is the backgrounds where he has tried to incorporate his more painted style to the overall concept. this give the work a more staged and worn feel. Everything doesn't look band new. The texture in the background starts to become a character in its own right as it tries to describe the story and the environment where the action takes place. 

Drawing for Illustration Out and About

Drawing for Illustration 

Perspective Drawings and Establishing Shots

During the induction week I push forward the message to first year (Level 4) students that the comic artist mantra has to be 'Draw Draw Draw!'
So what can we at university level do differently to get across the ideas we want the students to communicate in their work. A lot of the students know about the basics of a comic and how it is constructed, but they come from an education where the word is more important then the image. But inst it also true that 1 image can speak a thousand words, and communicate more effectively and efficiently to a wider and broader audience in a shorter amount of time?

Anyway, that's not the point of this blog. The point of this blog is to get you to realise how we can improve our drawing techniques by adding a bit of realisation to our briefs and encouraging the students to explore the larger world with their pens and pencils, rather than them hiding behind their mobile phones. 

The project above was to get the students to explore perspective. This used to be a day at the train station. But this year we thought differently and slightly out of the box and encouraged the students to take to the roof in the Flaxman and capture a scene from there. 

What we were after in this brief is to get the students to realise the power of the opening shot to help the reader to locate where the story is happening. Above is a drawing by one of the students Tom Newall taken while on the roof of the Flaxman. 

Above Mike Walters opening page with establishing shot and then the reader is lead into a location to demonstrate where the action is about to take place. 

Drawing at Stoke Railway station 

Drawing outside the Mellor Building at Staffordshire University 

drawing around the University 

Perspective in action 

Jason gets down to understand perspective by starting off low down and looking up