Stage 2 - Further thematic research

I have been looking at the contrast between the background and character elements in films like the incredibles and how simple and geometric they are as opposed to the characters. I have been thinking about the time scale I have to produce my work and how I need to find a way to speed up the process by simplifying the backgrounds in my comic, and keep the focus on the characters.

This scene from monsters inc is a great take on how something seems scary and changes tone suddenly. This is a good study for how my comics antagonists will be portrayed durign the story. This is also a good look at dark lighting which i have to experiment with in my development.

The trap door is an old claymation series of shorts. For me it is a massive childhood influence and used to scare me and inspire me to make my own plasticine monsters and characters. A similar tone of humour and macarbe is something that i would like to capture in my work. A sense of innocent entertainment with light hearted moral lessons and a interesting style.

I was browsing david smits blog and found some interesting digital paintings with a nice form and lighting style with good characterisation which is quite inspiring for my project.

Over time i would like to develop a digital style where i am more comfortable with being more rough and expressive and feel like it still looks good.

While exploring the web for research I decided to look at a webcomic called megatokyo. It was good research for me as it got me thinking about the backgrounds in my own panels.

Personally, I really dont like anime/manga artwork. I feel that it lends well to comic book styles such as this for its simplicty  efficiency but i hate its lack of originality it also feels out of date. And everyone draws like it. I want my work to be more stylistic and contemporary. However this was good reference material for seeing how the artist, Fred galhager, deals with creating backgrounds. In the top panel he introduces the scene which clearly is given less importance than the characters, but sets the scene and is fairly simple. It then almost entirely dissappears. I feel this is because the background is used at first to tell the viewer where they are but it isn't important, the viewer knows where they are and will remember. Then if their is a change in location you add in a background to tell the viewer the locale has changed. I will consider this in how i can save myself work, but i also know that my short narrative needs a fully finished, laboured quality over it to have value and authenticity which improves its worth and makes people want to own it.

WHAT KIND OF ILLUSTRATIVE PRODUCTS DO I LIKE TO BUY?

It was important to look at the kind of products that interest me and why, to get a sense of what it is that gives products their attractive nature. I have this set of dishonored playing cards, which I own with no intention of using to play. They use differnet symbology for each card to have a unique collectable nature. Using cards like this to play poker, for example, would be confusing, but this is still something I want to own for its style, and unique nature as an ornament. 

As an artist who is inspired by videogames, films and novels, I love to collect artwork and prints related to that. In terms of this, making my own work i have to decide on what kind of niche i want to appeal to, or wether i want to appeal to a broad audience. Not everybody is going to have the same taste as me. With my stage 2 product i want to produce something that has a wide audience with a nuetral kind of theme.