In the end I was pretty darn happy about how my comic came out, and the fact that I had actually completed a full comic book. Totally chuffed and pleased with myself. The story I came up with came together rather nicely and stayed true to my original brief and plan. Which was to create a black and white crime, noir comic set in Edinburgh and based around its graveyards; Ian Rankin's Rebus stories were a major influence. Due to time constraints however, the page number went down and down. 8 Pages of story and a cover is pretty decent though - the story makes sense and I like how it ended. Nothing like a good ol' "To be continued...".
My drawing style became more my own on this project, I feel that my influences are slowly getting weaned out and I have started to form my own approach. I use a lot of big black areas, with some hatching and crosshatching, and experimenting with negative space.
If in doubt, black it out!
I had originally planned to get the comic booked published professionally but due to time (Christmas period) I decided against this and to do it myself. Not only did I save myself a lot of money, but I was very please with the results. My DIY printing, stapling and trimming, and size of the book perfectly highlights the independent comic book mentality. That being said, if ever I was to do anther comic - which I probably will - I would get it printed professionally.
Throughout my project I stayed true to my original intentions and researched only relevant imagery and information. I looked at Edinburgh itself, its cemeteries and crime fiction based in Edinburgh; primarily the books by Ian Rankin. I even went to see him talk at the Bloody Scotland crime fiction festival. For my main artistic inspiration I turned to Frank Miller's crime-noir, comic series
Sin City (a black and white book drawn with a lot of positive and negative space)
. My only downfall however is that sometimes I look up something or discover something and not take note of it in my sketchbook.
From the get go I knew I wanted to do a black and white comic using the methods I knew and wanted to use - pencil, pen and black ink, lots and lots of black! When I am so set on my methods though experimentation does not really vary, and when it does I tend to focus more on certain techniques over others. For example, I did a lot of drawing onto black with a white pen and tip-ex. I was totally open to new techniques; maybe I could of experimented with a little print making to get my nice big black areas.
Probably the main thing I learned during this project is time management. I had set myself a big task, and even though I am so pleased with the final thing, I believe I could of done more. I also learned how to acquire and ISNB number and create a barcode if I wanted to sell my books professionally, and even though I did not do this for this project, its a skill that can be transferred over to another, similar project.
