Sci-Fi Graphic novel concept
During my time at university in 2020, I had the freedom to create and manage a project from scratch.
I decided on illustrating concept art for a supposed Graphic novel.
It was my first time attempting concept art, but I enjoyed what I created.
I wrote a story of a world set in a far future, the earth was destroyed long ago. The remnants of humanity took to the stars, living on multi-city-sized space stations scattered across the solar system. The story would follow a detective who follows the crimes of a religion that worships the rediscovered memorabilia or 'holy artifacts’ from the earth.
I started with drawing scenes / locations I'd like to see in the comic. This was of a follower praying towards an old phone box.
'The Reliance' One of the larger space stations and home of the main character.
Sketches of important items that could show up. Half of a clock face from Elizabeth tower, seen as a holy artifact, and a necklace showing a picture of earth, worn by followers and priests.
A sketch of a ship using random shapes thrown together as a baseline.
More ship concepts. Bottom left is one I pick later.
A test run of digital painting throw tracing an image of a castle. Sticking exclusively to monochrome so I could understand shading and distance.
The same test as the castle, but testing different layer edits like Multiply and Overlay.
Another ship concept, loosely inspired by the Apple Macintosh, to give a 'cassette punk' style.
Character concept art, this showing the fashion and hairstyles of the common citizen.
Character concept 2, shows the armour and space suit styles of bandits and vagrants.
What I picked as my favourite out of the 3.
A drawing of a robot I did years ago, I decided on bringing him into the story but redesigned him to fit better.
The robot's redesign. Would be called 'BUDDY' and would be a companion to the main character.
The story of the graphic novel is something I've thought about for quite a while before this project. This was one of the first sketches I ever did of the main character 'Eddie'.
Eddie was also redesigned to fit better, along with BUDDY, they were the first time I draw characters in more action-like poses.
I also decided on drawing one of the other characters Eddie and Buddy would have interacted with in this style. Which was inspired by Mike Mignola's style with his Hellboy comics.
A digital painting of a Bandit ship appearing to pick up a squad of theirs.