The Self-Negotiated Brief – Part Sixteen: Brody (Dog Variation Sketches)

I’ve been deliberating on the emotional look of “Brody” / “RE’EV”Spiders – 11/08/2012 recently, and have been thinking about whether I want him to be a calm looking breed of dog (for the most-part of the narrative), or whether I should just make him look flat-out angry. I think through these sketches, below, I have come to a better decision for the time being. Like with most features I have previously covered for this comic,  I’m going to have a gradual change in aesthetic on this character. Plus, seeing as this character is an animal, sudden change in emotions will be an inevitability.

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NOTES:

• This is the basic look which I wanted to go for with this variation of Brody.
• More pure-bred look

• I much prefer the feral look as opposed to the more clean / refined image.
• More feral look
• Dark around the eyes
• Dark tipped ears
• Thick neck
• Shaggy fur
• Jagged teeth

• DARKER / DOG EYE
• LIGHTER / WOLF EYE
• Pupil shrinks
• Colour gets lighter
• Becomes much more spherical

The Self-Negotiated Brief – Part Fifteen: Initial “Warg” Sketches

Here are some initial designs and notes for my “Hellhound-esque” character for the project. Instead of referring to this character as a “werewolf” (because let’s all face it, it’s such an overused concept nowadays) I’m going to be referring to it as a “Warg”, because this also feeds into my research of hellhounds and other canine-based creatures in mythology. Since doing these particular sketches, I’ve looked into heightening / lessening the percentage of “wolf” in the characters aesthetic, to see which will look more suitable for the grim-ness of the narrative.

As it stands, I am liking a healthy mix of the two! Perhaps I will end up using both for a transformation sequence. I am much more swayed towards the “humanoid” looking sketch, as it adds that much needed “creep” factor to the character. He is an “abomination” by all other characters accounts, and I feel that giving him a look closer to a human would add to the sickening vibe he has. I personally feel that monsters / creatures with humanoid features are much more terrifying. Making the creature look more “human” makes the reader tend to feel more uneasy, because of the closer proximity to reality.

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NOTES:

• Minute pupils
• Either white-blue or orange-yellow

• Character Trait – ALWAYS eats with hands

• Two rings in left ear
• EARS DOWN

• Eyes are demented in comparison to usual old, dead eyes

• Slight beard look on chin hair

• Has “walking out of his own body” experiences

• Massive arms

• Always wears a rosary bead necklace (RED)

• “WHO IS AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF?”

• “TARANTULA” opening (PENDULUM) is retrospective, walk along, past through present music
• Brody has a bony spine

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NOTES:

• “HELLHOUND”

• Spherical eye-sockets
• Teeth growing
• Ears flop down and grow thick fur
• Hair on crown thins and falls out

• Humanoid at first
• Marginally scrawny frame
• Neck is strained
• Nose is progressively more snout-like
• Ripped clothing
• Elongated tongue

• Jaw becomes more prominent
• Cheeks stick out
• Shoulders become hunched

The Self-Negotiated Brief – Part Fourteen: Dog Breeds

I’ve been looking at the notion of “Hellhounds” for this project, as well as “Faust” and various beliefs in the occult / supernatural. One thing in particular which I looked at was the general consensus on what hellhounds look like, as I plan to feature one or two in my graphic novel. This in mind, I started to take a look at the various physical differences and features found within different large dog breeds. Commonly, especially in British areas of hellhound lore, they are considered to sometimes have the appearance of a large Mastiff. In other cultures, they are commonly reported as being more wolf-like.

I found a directory online which had information on a multitude of large dog breeds – all in alphabetical order. Starting with “A” and working onwards, I drew up sketches of a few breeds I am considering replicating for my hellhounds. I intend to do a few more sketches in the future, once I’ve done a bit more development on this particular character.

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NOTES:

• SKETCHES OF LARGE DOG BREEDS
• (Hellhound design sketches for Self-Initiated project @ Uni)
• Japanese / American Akita
• Muzzled
• Close-up

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NOTES:

• Alaskan Malamute
• *SHARP EARS
• *FLOPPY EARS
• Anatolian Shepherd Dog
• Belgian Malinois

The Self-Negotiated Brief – Part Thirteen: Full Colour Costume Test (Brody)

After doing several initial sketches for “Brody’s” main costume, I drew up an image in colour, to see if my original thoughts on the design were any good or not. The image is alright, albeit having very large misjudgements on the proportions (I was drawing the image at an angle, so I apologise for his top half being substantially larger than his tiny, skinny legs, haha!). Seeing as this image was made a s a rough colour reference sheet, the detail in the colouring is only very simple. Having finished this picture, it has helped me to rethink a few ideas, and go on to create a much more cleaned up equivalent image – which will be scanned in at a later date.

Here is the mood board, consisting of the reference images I used to create this piece. I essentially used this just to make sure the way I drew the clothes looked half decent / convincing enough. The images show important individual elements of the outfit, the sources of which are various sites, found through the “Google” search engine.

I’ve included color keys at the top of the page: The left dictating skin and eye colour, and the right dictating costume and jewellery colouring. Due to the quality of the unintetional contrasting and brightness edit that came with the scanning of the image, some colours have become obscured, but trust my choices on those which I have used – overall they make the image look quite vivid in person!

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The Self-Negotiated Brief – Part Twelve: Brody Costume Sketches

I realise that from first impressions, Brody does indeed highly resemble “Gambit” from the “X-Men” series, and for that I do sorely apologize. It is purely coincidental I assure you! It wasn’t until a friend pointed out the similarities the other day, that I actually realised the heavy comparison between the two. Anyway, here are two full body costume sketches of “Brody” – the character which is receiving my main focus for this project for the time being. I am having so much fun developing ths character that I feel as though I am starting to neglect the development of other characters which are just as (if not more) important to the storyline.

I paid much more attention towards the first sketch as opposed to the second one. This was purely because I spent much more time refining the little features such as the hat, facial features, body position and so on. Because this was the first attempt at drawing this character – and this is usually the case when I draw a new design – I was desperate to make it look presentable. The second image was drawn at the suggestion of Craig (who is the “model” for “Brody”) as I asked him for some creative input for this small sketch session. He suggested that the character do a heroic / stereotypical pose just for the fun of it – and it was quite fun in all honesty! I intend to re-draw the second one at some point in the future, as I feel that it could look a lot better in many aspects.