I did a lot of doodling instead of drawing a comic today, and one of the things that came out was Sir Morton, from Legend of Bill (http://www.legendofbill.com) by David Reddick (again). I added some pitting to the metal edges of his shield (on his back) and helmet, tore open his scabbard and exposed his rust-pitted and broken sword. His leg greaves are nice…I’ll have to fix that. I’ve taken a lot of liberties, because I can. That’s why I like it.
I do intend to color this at some point, by the way. In fact, I’ve started, then stopped, then started again.
Here’s the final storyboard for the fan art strip (229). Originally, I imagined the joke with Sir Morton talking. The text at the top, cut off, is pretty inconsequential. Something like, ‘Hey, want some pancakes?’ ‘No, thank you.’ ‘Eggs?’ ‘No, I’m quite alright’. For several reasons, I decided that Sir Morton, a zombie, should most definitely NOT speak. In the end, I left my storyboard and just drew roughly the same shot three times in a row. I don’t like the end result, the composition was horrendous, but I enjoyed the process.
This was a classic case of over-thinking the premise and not testing the execution.
This is an unnamed waitress that I drew to bring the coffee to the table. The strip was far too busy as it was, so I nixed her when I set everything down on Bristol, but she’s part of the process.
Sir Morton was my favorite character to draw for this fan art piece. First, I like head-munching, cartoony zombies. Second, because he was only seen on Bill’s back, munching on his head, I got to draw the torso myself. In fact, I exposed half of his torso for the joke in my fan art strip. It’s a combination of existing character and creative liberties. I could have done that with any of the other characters, but part of the challenge for me is to try someone else’s art style. I already draw in my own, and of course an individual’s art style is going to creep in.
I really like Frank. I’ve got a soft spot for diminutive dragons. What’s really nice is that his head is a set of trapezoids put end to end. It also helped me learn to draw snouts for cartoons. Drawing Frank was a whole lot of fun.
Here’s a decomposition for Princess Gina. She has more aggressive lines than I’m used to, which makes her stand out pretty well and really goes well with the cloak. Her eyes are pretty high on her head, which gives her a tough, imposing look.
I did some fan art for David Reddick’s Legend of Bill. To start, I did a ‘decomposition’ of his characters into their component shapes, then a rendering of the character using those shapes as a form. Here, you can see the titular Bill in his blocky form. Notice his head is a rectangle with another small rectangle for a chin. A really neat idea!