Developing the visual style of my Final Major Project is an important part of the design process, as it gives myself and others a clearer idea of the different aspects of my fictional universe. This includes everything from the spacecraft used by the humans and the aliens, to the techniques and aestethic used in the final outcome.
The first experiment into the visual style of my project came in the form of traditional inking practice. This page shows dummy panels from my graphic novels, as well as a shaded and detailed head, which I later realised would be too detailed and time-consuming to implement into my graphic novels. I worked to get better with my line control when it comes to brushwork, and I think this experimentation payed off in the final dummy page at the end of this post.
Next, I produced several designs for what the human ships and military vehicles would look like. This was one of the most enjoyable parts of the visual research, as I hadn't developed the human side of the designs and could do anything I wanted with the designs. In the end, the designs I preferred the most were the more 'modular' and blocky ships, along with the infantry transport on the last page.
Revisiting the Cryp'lar concept ship designs, I wanted to produce a larger and more concrete design of the Cryp'lar Control Ship for my design board. I believe that this illustration shows the technique and level of detail that would be in my graphic novels - as if this drawing was taken directly from a panel of one of the books. I like this design because it has a simple structure, while also showing a lot of detail. For example, the large concentrated city on the surface of the craft has all the buildings and towers fully represented, which not only gives a better sense of scale to the ship, but also contrasts well against the more spacious 'arms' surrounding it.
This is the initial page layout sketch for the final dummy page that would also be presented on my design board. There is rough detail concerning the subjects of each panel, and it gives a good, if not crude, example of the finished page.
Above is the inked page in all its detailed glory. The ink gives the lines a bold and sharp look, which works well on subjects with a lot of close linework (like the Cryp'lar warriors under the first panels). The content of this page includes the Cryp'lar invasion seen in the first graphic novel, and is presented in a way that emphasised the aliens' descent onto Earth - with panels at the bottom on ground level showing the reaction to the invasion.
While this was only meant to be a simple test for how the actual pages of my FMP would turn out, it surprisingly helped me with the world-building of 24th Century Earth, if only slightly. The towering skyline of this metropolis helped me to comprehend the setting of the first book - before the Cryp'lar attacks Earth.
Here is the final dummy page scanned, formatted, and with the text added. After digitally cleaning up the linework, I placed the page inside a black border with a white bleed, which makes it look professional and further aids the black ink lines in popping out. By adding text to only the top panels, I managed to further emphasise the alien descent by having the text move lower and further to the right, which would naturally end on the people at the bottom. The textless end panels give time for the people to react to the ships swarming over the skies. Overall, I believe this page is both visually pleasing and representative of the direction and pacing I had in mind for this part of the narrative.
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I believe that conducting this visual research has helped me to better understand the look of the characters, vehicles and locations of my own universe, as well as gave me an opportunity to practice the process I will use to create my graphic novels, during the FMP module. As this was only preliminary research into my narrative, I did not get to experiment or develop elements very far, and would have enjoyed a longer period of experimentation and development to fully engross myself in the visual style of this fictional universe.
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