Music for the showreel

For my showreel I wanted to find music that reflected my comic overall, rather than just on a few aspects of it. I wanted it to immerse the potential reader in the feel of the comic. The following words kept coming to mind: natural flow, summer and an overall calm. I had my mind focused on keeping things very light hearted, not devling into rock and roll or something too soft. I tried looking into other shows that were based on the same theme as my comic.

Azumanga Diaoh - OP: Oranges & Lemons
The tune reflected the more silly and comedic nature of the show, with very light-hearted springy sounds and a very inviting tune.

LuckyStar - OP: Motteke! Sailor Fuku
A lot more fast-paced compared to the Azumanga song, many have criticized this opening for being misleading, cause its fast paced and hyper energetic opening does not prepare you in the right mood for the show's more slow paced themes and jokes. That said, many have also stated to this day, they still can't get the song out of their heads.

K-ON! - OP: Cagayake! Girls
A lot more themed around the show, with the primary focus being that all the girls are in a school band/club together. But then again, many have criticized the fact that they feel misled as the show focuses more on the friends, than on the band aspect of their show.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S - OP: I'll be there for you
The theme fits the show perfectly, catching the era in which the show was set, while expressing the main themes of the show, strife with lover, work and money. As well as the companionship of your friends. It also does a very good job of drilling itself into your skull.

After listening to these, I feel like I needed to focus on the single element about my project, that could allow me to cast a wider net. My comic is meant to show that people with physical and mental disabilities or conditions are no different from people who we'd consider normal and that we are all human. So I felt that the best way to go about this was to focus on the one element we all do naturally, waking up. So I felt the best way music for the showreel had of conveying this sense of waking up in the morning was hearing a song on the radio.

Character bedrooms rough designs.

Test Demo one

Issues that occurred-

When using an image as a button, roll over edits the background and not the image itself! Thus we will need to make a custom image that switches out when roll over occurs.

But I am unable to figure out how you insert an image during the processes. Will check tutorials

I forgot how to make scrolling objects.

Images appeared pixelated while editing, but they seem cleaner when working on HTML. it seems might need to fiddle around with how something appears while editing and how it looks when It's actually done, as well as different sizes.

Treatment of Female Characters in comic books

It's very well known that comic books are a male dominated culture, but females still find their grounds in there, from writers, to artists and even fans. This once male-dominated culture is starting to rub elbows with the opposite sex. And sadly it's not going as smooth as butter.

Females have always seemed to be a hit or miss with the comic book industry, never really sure where their roles stand, or what to do with them. This has caused a very much 'close minded' attitude to women in the industry, both the fans, artists and writers as well as the characters. When it comes to the women who work in business, the male audience seem to treat them like a 'dumb girl' who doesn't understand the business she is involved with, despite probably having written the very comic he's about to read, and that the fans are clueless attention-seeking hogs who know nothing of the source material.

But sadly I do not know much information when it comes to the business side, mostly information and rumours. But as for the actual comic book writers and the characters they ruin, I am a bit more informed.

Example: DC writer Scott Lobdell whom, at the time of me writing, has been outed for his sexist and sexual harassment to a fellow coworker, during a panel.

But what could Scott Lobdell have done that's so bad? WELL, one of his 'crimes' against comics is his rendition of Starfire in his book "RedHood and the outlaws."

This was StarFires Original Appearance

This is how Starfire became known by the public

And this is what he turned her into. Exhibit A    Exhibit B

To be fair to Scott Lobdell, he isn't the only one to abuse the female character in comic books, it's been going on for a LONG time, way back in the 200th issue of The Avengers.

Released in October of 1980

The comic continued the cliff hanger of the mysterious pregnancy of Ms.Marvel (Known today as Captain Marvel).

In which they revealed that Carol Danvers (Ms.Marvel) was abducted against her will, romanced and led with hypnotic suggestions, so that she could be impregnated with the life essence of her RAPIST, so that she may give birth to him.

Carol only existed in this comic to give birth, because lazy male writers only know this about women.

They like women, women are mothers and women get married. That. Is. It. When it comes to a portion of the comic industry, it is a sad truth, but one we must face.

As such, I choose to follow the teachings of Ridley Scott and create CHARACTERS first and let gender become a second issue only. I do this so I do not fall into the trappings of lesser men before me. Female characters deserve as much respect as their real world counterparts, even more so one could argue. As they are the role models of a new generation, these are the people other people will look towards and read into to see what is right and what is wrong.

Outfits finished.

Showreel Concepts

For my showreel I'd like to convey the mood and feel of my comic. To help me, I have been looking at showreels by comic book artists online to see if they could help me decide as to what I really want to convey with my comic. While many of them were good, such as Tyson Hesse's (see above) show reel, I didn't feel that they were that helpful to what I wanted.

After much thought, I felt that the best thing to do for my comic's show reel was to put all my cards on the table and truly think what could be the most interesting from what I am able to do.

For this I've decided to show stills of art work that best promote the comic's tone and feel, while having concept art run alongside it to show the production of it.

To help create these stills I've been looking at promotional art for Anime series. such as these.

Inspiration & Influences

Anyone who works in any form of creative medium will tell you the importance of research, inspiration and the influences for their work. From the people who inspire us, to the things we search for ourselves, to the little things that come to us every day.

So what influences me?

When I was young, anime had just been brought over to the west for kids' TV. Shows like Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor Moon and several others were the highlight of many kids' evenings. Mine included. But it wasn't until near the end of Digimon's series one run time that I actually started drawing. At the time I wanted to draw a favourite Digimon of mine, Puppetmon. My sister was the best artist in our family, along with her friend Liz, but they didn't want to do things for me, so they taught me the basics of how to draw in a somewhat Asian-themed style. Through most of primary school I drew like that.

This didn't change until I joined a homework club in secondary school, where I was introduced to webcomics by an older student. The first two webcomics I was introduced to were The Wotch and El Goonish Shive, which started me on my comic book binge. I started to read more and more comics, which got me the idea in my head that I should perhaps make my own webcomic. Years followed of me switching styles to a more Western-looking one and many failed attempts at stupid ideas for a comic.

In later years, I started teaching myself to improve, for while I was gradually getting better through sheer force of will and noticing things around me, I didn't actually consider how I could use references and tutorials to teach myself how to be better at comics. This is where I started looking at How to books and tutorials, as well as trying to copy some of the artistic stylings of comics like Comedity.

A few years later leads me to where I am now, learning to inspire myself by not just one or two things, but everything around me. I'm always teaching myself hopefully helpful new techniques and methods to improve my art, as well as asking advice of seasoned artists and friends about my work. I've learned that the greatest asset to an artist or any creative person is critiques and one should not be afraid to try new or different methods to improve oneself.

But this leads to a question that is commonly asked of me...

What inspires me?

To be frank, no one thing in particular. I find that for someone to grow creatively you need to take inspiration from everything, not just something you 'like'. If you're only recreating and replicating from the things you like, then your work will become very bland, stale and VERY predictable. This is why it's good introduce yourself to anything and everything; to experiment.

Even consider things that have been universally panned, because even things that are bad can be done well. It's your job as a creative mind to take what is good and what is bad and to dissect them. What makes it good? What makes it bad? If you removed certain elements would it still be good or bad? Could you make it better?

One thing you should absolutely do is question everything and always think about the things you are introduced to. Does that mean you can't like anything? You must observe it from a critical mind only? Yes and no, just because you're observing something critically does not mean you can't enjoy it, and just because you enjoy something, doesn't mean you shouldn't observe it critically.

You can actually find new appreciation for both good and bad things when observing them from a new aspect, for example, many people will agree the films done by Ed Wood are TERRIBLE, but new appreciation is found in those films, when you learn of his nothing but pure passion for cinema as an art!