klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

I added a similar type of rim light to the hunter to better show him under the dark ray of the shadow cast by Leshy. I was also considering adding the people in front of the hunter to show their fearful reactions to the beast the hunter in main focus is not aware of at the time but in the end I decided against it as my goal with these finished drawings was not to actually complete these two panels background and all but just to show the main, simple idea of the type of movement or scene I wanted to present and I feel this character and the silhouette of Leshy manage to convey that alone without the need for the rest of the things that were originally included in the panel.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

The second panel out of the two I picked out to finish of individually is this one where Leshy first appeared at the hunters’ bonfire place. Originally I intended this panel to build tension as it appeared directly after the reaction of some woman seeing Leshy creep up onto the campsite. First you would see Leshy as a shadow before he would actually appear in person to build tension in the scene. I especially liked this panel because I simply thought it was a cool depiction of how much taller and stronger he was compared to regular humans provided through his silhouette alone. You can see the shadow towering over the celebrating hunter bringing great conflict into the scene and I just thought it was good cinematography on my part which is why I was unhappy about not being able to actually put this panel into the comic in its finished form.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Lastly I came to the conclusion all the greys blended into each other too much in this piece so I picked out a pure white shade and using a pencil brush I added a sort of a rim light around the darkest part of the sketch as well as the ones that were layered on top of each other so it would be easier to distinguish them and I can tell it has vastly improved the quality of this piece turning it into one of my favourite drawings I have completed throughout the entire project. To finish it off I used the same brush to add the highlights for the eyes, keeping my design consistent as well as an airbrushed ray of light appearing on the direction of the light source to make the piece have a natural feeling to it.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Next Steps

For my next steps I would like to finish some individual panels from the comic depicting Leshy to show what they would look like tying the comic closer to all the development I put toward it. I really liked most of the pages in which Leshy appeared in but as I know I won't have time to finish the entire pages I most likely won't have to finish a lot of panels from them either so I picked out two of my favourite panels in which Leshy appeared and now I will complete them to add onto my final outcome.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Using the same colour as I used for the lighter parts of the lineart I added another overlay layer to highlight certain areas of the drawing in a cel shading style and complementing this sort of colouring I also chose one of the orange shades that appeared on my gradient map and used it to highlight the lightest areas of where the light source fell on the sketch giving it a very distinct look with a type of light you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint to any certain time of day. Contrasting the orange I used a deep blue shade on a multiply layer to add extra shadows into the piece. I didn’t go for too much as the lineart already did most of the work but just enough to build some more form into the piece. 

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

After completing the sketch I selected the area using the magic wand tool and filled it in with a gradient map of really red, fiery colours and set the opacity really low to make it into my base colour before the shading. Also while doing the lineart I forgot to mention I kept switching between a dark navy blue shade and a low magenta for the lighter areas of the sketch that ended up adding a lot of personality to the drawing.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Out of the two panels with Leshy I chose to pick out and complete this one is definitely my favourite. This would’ve been the finishing panel of the comic appearing just after Leshy killed the hunter responsible for the death of the deer. I really liked the swift movement I came up with in the sketch especially followed by the cape swinging around his body. Originally in the comic there was supposed to be fire in front of him coming in from the bonfire where the deer was hanging to make the scene appear really dramatic as a conclusion to the comic but here I just wanted to focus on the character by himself and to be fair I really like this outcome. I recently reinvented my artsyle a bit where I go in for the lineart without actually having a sketch underneath through a process of switching out the brushes and erasing as I go and I feel this type of style strongly suits the character, giving him a much more comic book styled appearance compared to how the characters in my comic actually looked.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Evaluation

This is my finished outcome, and the first thing that stands out about it is that in fact it is not finished at all. I completed exactly half of the pages I set out for myself and I’m not really happy about that fact because obviously when I sketched the panels out I intended to get it all done before the end of the project. I set myself way too high of a workload not realising the speed at which I would be completing these pages. The only thing I regret is that I haven’t actually gotten to inking and colouring any of the pages depicting Leshy which is a shame as I centred the entire project around him, so him not appearing in the comic kind of ruins the purpose of all the work I had put into designing and drawing him. 

The pages I did not finished were also really action pact which is something I’m really proud of this project. Instead of creating one loose strip like a couple of projects ago where I also drew a Webtoon style comic here I pushed myself to actually tell a story, and I made myself draw all of these dynamic action poses with the deer running away and the dogs and hunters chasing after it, and even at the end in the unfinished pages with Leshy taking out all of the hunters one by one. I also particularly enjoy the sense of karma coming from the fact the hunters killed the deer by pinning it to a tree with a spear only to end up pinned themselves later on with the same weapon, the story coming full circle. I know I tend to avoid drawing dynamic poses as its way simpler to stay in your comfort zone and draw what you know over and over that is why I’m really happy I managed to push myself to create a comic I would’t have otherwise.

One of the things I am super happy about this project is the fact I managed to combine all the 3 previous projects this year and use my skills and knowledge acquired in these projects to elevate my outcome in this one. 

In the first project this year I drew a Webtoon styled comic focused around Slavic mythology, given a different aspect of it. In that project I changed and adapted my art style inspired by the artists I looked at taking apart sections of their works I liked the most and interpreted it into my drawings and here I carried this art style over to this comic. I also acquired technical skills of how the Webtoon formatting works and when then I was afraid to use panels, worried about ruining the flow of the comic in this project I was boldly using panels of different lengths, shapes and sizes bringing variety into the project.

The second project pushed me to draw animals giving me the technical skills of how to simplify the process allowing me to figure out a simple way to draw any type of animal significantly helping me with drawing the deer during this project, giving me the confidence to draw it from different angles and putting it into crazy, dynamic poses. If not for that project I would have certainly not even attempted drawing animals. Another thing I took from that project was all the practice in painting I acquired as my final outcome was a set of painted illustrations. All these paintings gave me the confidence to draw backgrounds and depict them from different angles and view points, eventually leading me to practice perspective drawing in my personal art pieces.

In the last project before the FMP I created concept art for a group of cyberpunk styled superheroes, focusing my efforts on athletic dynamic poses, pushing my ability to draw the same character consistently multiple times from different angles and in different stances which definitely benefited me when it came to designing and redrawing Leshy this project as well as somewhat keeping the hunters and the deer consistent through all the panels.

In conclusion, although I didn’t get the comic completed fully I am quite happy with this project as I managed to use all the skills and knowledge I gathered throughout all the projects this year and put them to use. I’m also really pleased with all the time I spent designing Leshy as even though he didn’t get to appear in the final outcome I managed to end up with a strong, factually based design I am really confident in.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

These are all the panels I managed to complete for the comic. I had four more pages planned out but I set myself too high of a target with the amount of drawings I wanted to finish in such a short time span so I don’t particularly blame myself for not finishing the comic in its full length, although I did expect to at least get the 5th page done as that is the one where Leshy first appears in this short story and I don’t like the fact I based the entire project around him but didn’t actually get to the part of the comic where he appears.

On the other hand, instead focusing on the things I did manage to finish off I really like the progression of time did manage to present in my completed panels. The action is set at sundown and you can tell this is the time of day as in the top, first panels the lighting is rather gentle and low in opacity but as you read on the pages become progressively brighter and more red, with purple, contrasting shadows becoming deeper and deeper with every next drawing.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Here I especially like the painted panel, the lighting works really well to draw your eyes to the deer and I also appreciate my decision to blur out the spear from the front view because it did in fact make it appear to look like it was quickly moving forward towards the animal.

Another thing I enjoy about these panels is the half and half spilt of shadows in the last drawing. With a half of the deers face and half of the tree being covered in a deep, dark shadow as well as the hunter being completely replaced by a silhouette it in a way pushes the thought that this is a darker part of nature. Almost the entire comic had more highlights than shadows so using more shading in this perticular panel  in a way symbolises the death of this deer. Also looking across all the pages this one even without the blood on the snow appear significantly more red than the others purposefully complementing the violent act taking place in these panels.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

As the mood of my scene is set around a sunset I made the decision to add a lot more lighting and highlights to this page in particular considering sunsets are pretty quick, especially in the winter times. Adding a lot more highlights the letter the comic goes along creates the feeling of passage of time that will be very important in this scene as well as the next one around the fire camp that occurs after a minor time skip. 

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

I once again began my drawing process by filling in the flats in all of the panels and later moved on to paint all the backgrounds using the same technique of the white to cold blue gradient and shading it with purple and blue multiply layers to create a cold hue look for the panels. As one of the panels only displayed some blood on it I managed to get the process of colouring done rather quickly so I moved on to the lighting starting with deep purple multiply layers on a lowered opacity.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Weekly Targets

At this point I am confident there is no way I can complete all the pages I sketched out, it’s just too big of a workload for such a short amount of time especially at the speed I have been working in thus far. 

This week I just want to finish off the 4th page that I have already inked out and have some sort of look back at the work I produced this project and evaluate my process.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

After wasting all the time of the previous couple of panels I finally moved on to page 4 of the comic that again includes a sideways panel showcasing the deer running through the woods as the spear is nearing its path. I will also blur out the spear in the finished outcome of this page to make it look more in motion, represent the fact that its travelling at a high speed.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

This is by far my least favourite page out of the ones I have completed so far but not because I don’t like the drawings or anything like that, it’s because of the fact that the corrections of the dynamic poses up until the point I was happy with how they looked took me far too long wasting much of my time on a single page when I could’ve been moving on to the next one instead of trying to get a drawing to look perfect. To be fair I am quite upset about this fact because even after all these corrections I can’t get myself to like this page in particular but I already know wasting all this time on finishing these panels mean I won't have enough time to finish at least one of the other pages.

[klaudiaspiechowiczfmp2]

Getting the lighting right on this page took me a while as I had trouble deciding what the light would be hitting against in this scenario and where the shadows would land especially on the long panel with the dogs chasing after the deer in the snow. There wasn’t a lot for me to work with but then I also didn't want to shade in the entire side of the hill as I felt that would distract the audience from the action taking place.