Chapter Six Concept Designs

While drawing Chapter Five, I had to do a little bit of on-the-fly location and character designing. Nothing crazy, just one character and one small location. Still, I regret leaving the design work until I absolutely needed to have it.

This is business as usual. It is the nature of comics that for most things, we figure out what it looks like the first time we have to draw it in a panel. Not main characters, though — I like to always have a reference sheet to look at so I know what my character is supposed to look like. To animation professionals, doing anything else might sound insane. And yet, I have heard comics professionals ridicule the need for a "model sheet" (this is the animation term for reference character drawings — when an animator's drawings look like the reference, they are "on model;" when they look wrong, they are "off model").

Me, I have a hard enough time keeping characters looking consistent even with a model sheet. Plus, I believe that good design and on-model characters remove friction from the reading experience. I don't want you ever having to guess which character you're looking at, unless by intent.

Knowing I'd have some new characters and new locations in Chapter Six, and knowing that we'd be seeing a lot of them, I turned my re-grets into un-grets and spent a little time deciding what everything should look like. I am so glad I did, for reasons that I will explain after this hard swerve.

FIRST, A RECOMMENDATION

Hey, are you feeling down about the state of the world? No? Well, I admire either your fortitude of spirit or your distance from the news cycle. Me, I am worried, and according to the introduction in Hannah Ritchie's NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, a lot of other people are feeling like these are the end-times. As bonus context, I am writing this a week before we know the results of the 2024 US election, ha ha, nothing to worry about there!

Recommended by folks on my Gardening Discord server, NOT THE END OF THE WORLD is an easy-to-read non-fiction book that aims to use data to convince you that despite everything you hear, globally speaking, we're actually doing pretty well. Whoa, wait — I know what you're thinking, because I keep thinking it between every paragraph break — no we're not. And Ritchie is not saying "let's all relax." The message seems to be: "don't despair." We are not doomed. We have the tools to "build a sustainable world," without even giving up much of what you like.

I know, right? I also find that hard to believe, but she's been convincing so far. Here are some fun tidbits that stood out:

• between 2009 and 2019, photovoltaic solar power went from being the most expensive way to produce electricity to the cheapest. Cheaper than coal. It could also use less land than current methods of generating energy.

• wow, growing beef is hard on the environment. Compared to other sources of protein, by an enormous margin.

• palm oil might be the most eco-friendly oil available? Producing an equivalent amount of other oils (olive, nut, etc.) would require much, much more land use (i.e., potential deforestation).

• globally, the world produces enough food to feed its entire population two times over. The only reasons that hunger still exists are political and social.

The one frustration with the book is exactly that last point: the problem remains, "how do we put these things into practice, how do we get people to be just a little different?" I am filled with optimism until I remember the barricades between the data and implementing change. In fairness, that is probably a topic for another book.

Since I was feeling skeptical about Ritchie's qualified optimism, I took the tiniest look into her organization, Our World in Data. Looks like their funding comes from sane-enough places. I asked a friend of mine who is a professor at UBC in their forestry department, he says he uses data from Our World in Data all the time. This all leaves me feeling like Ritchie's conclusions are on the up-and-up. If you're looking for a ray of sunshine, take a look.

BACK TO THE CARTOONS

Chapter Six! This is where we get to meet the "mayor" of Barathron. ("Mayor" is not the right word, but that's what I started calling him and that's how I think of him now.)

Above, a very early design — from 2018, probably — for Nikos, the local chief of Archipoli; and the local chief of Barathron (whatever his name is). If you do not know who is Archipoli and who is Barathron, then my little visual pun is not working. Which is fine, actually. It's not supposed to be that obvious.

I struggle with character design. I see appealing, innovative designs everywhere — games, animation… especially social media — and I always feel like that type of design is just not my forte. I want to be a great designer. I want people to see my designs and think, "now that's something I want to read." I can think of a few people who exactly fit that description. Who wouldn't want to be like that? How do I bridge that gap? Is it even possible for me, when I spread my attention over so many different disciplines?

I was also taught that an important part of the design process was coming up with many ideas and choosing the best. Sure enough, working in a studio, I can generate tons of variations on a design for you. But when I'm working on something for myself, it's different. If I try this approach, I end up spinning my wheels and generating indecision. No, I just need a visual hook or story concept, and then I usually choose one of the first few designs that I come up with. With the "mayors" above, there was one idea I liked — the Archipoli / Barathron visual pun, silly though it is — so that's what I shot for. When I hit the target, I said, "good," and moved on.

Regardless of my methods or my feelings about myself as a designer, I remembered my experience of designing as-I-went in Chapter Five, how dissatisfied I had been with that approach, and I chose to do something different. It didn't take long for me to be happy with that choice.

First, I laid out all the characters I'd need to design for Chapter Six, all on one sheet (below). At first, they were just general silhouettes and placeholders, they weren't as detailed as you see them now. The biggest problem was that I had three "guards" that I wanted to give a distinct look — distinctive individually, as well as distinctive from anyone we've seen in Archipoli — but I didn't know how I'd get there. Should I just pore through reference material, looking for something interesting? Or start sketching until a visually interesting idea appeared?

No, instead I turned to my secret weapon:

I took a walk.

This approach never fails. During the walk, I found one simple concept to hang the designs on.

The mayor of Barathron is a selfish prick. Maybe I could illustrate that idea with the character design and costuming? What if he's so selfish and/or ignorant that he had all his guards' uniformed ordered in one size, and he expects them to adapt? Then a small, skinny guard would be swimming in his uniform while a bigger, barrel-chested guard would be all trussed up. That's all I needed. I'd repeat the shape of the mayor's chestpiece, but with those different effects. I didn't worry that it would be too much of the same shape, because we'll only see them for the one chapter.

I got back from my walk, quickly drew in the details over my placeholder silhouettes (still talking about the image above), then developed them a little further, just to be sure (below).

You can see the idea represented by the two middle figures above. On one, the clothes fit tight. On the other, the clothes fit loose. I exaggerated the idea a little — the stout guard has a tiny dagger at his waist, the small guard has a large sword — and that did the trick for me. Those guys are good to go.

The guy on the right, above, is supposed to be very principled, so I just tried to make everything about him very square and upright.

The guy on the left, above, is the captain of the guard. This drawing wasn't doing much for me, so I tried again (below).

Here the concept of the ill-fitting uniforms starts to break down, because I wasn't sure what third direction to go after "too big versus too small." In the end, I chose "generally ill-fitting" to say that of all of them, the mayor's clothes are the only ones that fit. (I don't like that weird sash he has hanging over his eye. That will not be on the final page. Though… maybe he could have an eye patch?)

Also there's a drawing of a small square window, for reasons that will become obvious soon. At the time I drew this, it was one of two notable features in a prison cell. I needed to know how it might feel and how I might make such a simple concept more visually appealing. Down in the bottom-right, I added a little shutter that you might pop in if you wanted to close the window, which I think adds a surprising amount of visual interest.

Back to characters, though. Alexandra needs to disguise herself slightly (below), and we also meet someone very much like Alexandra, but who is dressed in her sleepwear (the notes "soft face" and "small chin" are my cues to differentiate her from Alexandra, who has a rectangular jaw).

Here again I think to myself, "how can I maximize the opportunity of this costume change to do something cool?" But is that the right attitude? What the story needs is for Alexandra to put on something simple so she looks just changed enough, but not radically different. This is not a Katy Perry concert (feel free to mentally update this analogy as you wish). She needs to look like she's taken exactly what she's wearing and hidden it beneath a single garment. So I threw an overcoat on her and wrapped her hair up (below).

Please do not judge the awkwardness of that pose. It shows me how the overcoat fits and how the sleeves behave, which is the important part. It is not pretty but it meets my needs. Could this look cooler? Maybe. It needs to be believable, it needs to not get in the way, and I need to know what it's supposed to look like when I get to the panels on the page, which is where it does need to look cool.

That's all the character design. Next challenge: SPOILER ALERT but Alexandra gets chucked in a cell. A boring old cell. I need a lonely, rectangular room with one square window, a grate in the ceiling, and minimal other furnishings. Let's see what we get.

The patterned squares above are designs for the ceiling grate. It's made of iron and lets air flow up through the building. We're going to be seeing a lot of it, so I figured I should make it interesting. The design on the left is supposed to contain a bit of a "bird" motif, to keep that theme running.

In a previous post I mentioned a book I picked up called GREEK STYLE. Well, it's paid for itself with one good visual idea. In the book, someone had decorated a storage room by hanging old keys on a line, strung in an arc. I saw that and thought, well, that's a fun idea for a prison cell. What a cruel way to tease a prisoner. Now our cell contains two chains bolted to the wall, both strung with various keys. Even if one of those keys worked in the lock, you'd never get it off the chain. That's not enough, though. I had to provide somewhere for our character to sit and contemplate the keys. It couldn't be supportive and comfortable, though. I needed to be a wretched little stool.

Above, the entrance to the cell is a tiny door so that our characters need to stoop to get through, making them look undignified. The stairs mean that we go down into the cell, which is further demeaning and reinforces the power differential between the jailer and the jailed. There used to be a candle on the table, but it's spent, so our prisoner doesn't even get the company of a small flame.

All in all I'm very pleased with this. If it seems like a lot for one jail cell, well, we spend quite a few pages there, so I needed to find some flavour for it. Also, the strings of keys aren't actually in the script or the thumbnails, so now I will have to add a page to make something of them. This is the right choice, I think, because it adds character and texture, and that's a goal from the very early days of this project.

Finally, I wanted to know what the mayor's courtyard looked like (above). More specifically, I wanted to reassure myself that it wouldn't be boring. The drawings below are different parts of the same building.

Way way back at the start of the project, I decided that Archipoli would be horizontal — like books in a pile — while Barathron would be vertical — like books on a shelf. Looking at my thumbnails for Chapter Six, a lot of the scenic images of Barathron I am happy to leave until I got the their respective panels, since that usually works out just fine, but the mayor's building gave me a chance to see how I could reinforce that vertical idea. I decided to make the windows always taller than they are wide, the chimneys stick up a little taller than they need to, water stains leave vertical streaks on the wall, and I'll be trying to emphasize vertical accents wherever I might stick a horizontal one. Looking at it now, those big pots should be taller, too.

With that, I think I have enough to move forward. I like how these locations are looking, and my characters are doing what they need to do. Will the designs stop anyone in their tracks, like I secretly hope they will? Is that too much to expect?

As much as I like them, it's possible that chasing cool, novel, envelope-pushing design is a fool's errand. Look at any of the most popular cartoons. Simpsons, Rick & Morty, Adventure Time, Bluey, Pokemon, etc. etc. You can't design the popularity of these shows. The designs suit the tone of the show, and the show suits the designs. Cool character designs on social media are cool because they are blissfully free from any greater context. Their context is "look cool." But when it comes to a fully-featured project, you can't judge its character design in isolation. You judge it by asking, "does every part of this project come together to make something unified and distinctive?"

If I think about it like that, I find it easier to be kind to myself when it comes to Character Design. I don't feel like I'm the world's most thrilling designer, but I am doing my best to ensure that every aspect of this graphic novel feels part of the whole. It's impossible for me to decide whether a character design will arrest a passing stranger, but I can ask myself, "does it feel like it fits in?" If I can achieve that, then I know I can be happy with my designs.

- - - - - -

Readers, I promise you I start each and every one of those posts thinking, "this will be a short one." I tell myself, "I'll recommend that book I like, then I'll talk about using a story idea as a design goal, and I'll talk about the fun idea with the keys in the cell, and it'll be a quick little email that people can enjoy with their morning coffee."

All I can say is, "I'm sorry."

Everyone keep being perfectly lovely to each other.

Until next week,
I remain,
just a little different,

TC