Rough Planet

I had a bunch of Weird Planet rough work and concept sketches floating around the flat that I didn't quite know what to do with, so I thought I'd scan them in and give you a chance to see the comic without it's clothes on before dropping them in the ol' recycle bin. 

Imagining the visual world and the characters who populate it is my favorite stage in the development process, where it's all about just getting the ideas down on paper. Many of those ideas don't end up translating into the final piece and serve as more of a creative background radiation for me; it's nice for me to give them some daylight here.

There are lots of little permutations that occur as I try to get things just right, much to both Rich and my wife's annoyance ("Does this look better? What about this? Or this? Okay: this?). Why not compare these to the final comic and see if you can spot the differences? Weee, a game!

The first time I've done the thumbnail sketching stage sans Rich.

Playing with some avian and Mesoamerican influences for the Malakhim, and an early Thomas character study

 

Trying a new (and unsuccessful) over-sized thumbnailing technique

 

Divine evolution. I briefly toyed with the idea of having scraggly clipped feathers poking out from under his manacles.

 

    

And then there's colour, my mortal enemy. Sometimes I wish I was colour blind so I didn't have to worry about it. Oh wait.... hello black and white comics.  

It also helps settle petty disputes between Rich and I, like whether or not our protagonist could possibly be a ginger (the answer is no).

Getting psychedelic...

Let's try some normal colours (incomplete).

Enough of this madness!

Signing off,
JC