Willis Henry Character Play (Part 1)

I am coming to the final push on the making of Willis Henry comic.

Currently I'm playing with the lead character, Willis Henry, to get use to drawing him but also to find a balance and flow of the character. Willis Henry is a fun character to draw.

Sol Drive

Myth Child Of Flame

Ken Chun Li SF4 Full Circle (SideQuest)

Continuing the Street Fighter SideQuest

Ken and Chun Li are returning masters.

Princess (Willis Henry)

The Princess from the Willis Henry Comic
I love drawing the character

Watercolor Sketch 02

a little watercolor practice

Street Fighter 4 Full Circle (SideQuest)

I was playing Street Fighter 4 with a friend, and we had alot of fun. It really made me remember highschool. We use to go to the local burger place and play until we had to go home (goodtimes).

While SF 4 is a good game, it feels just like SF2. So I thought it would be fun to redesign Street Fighter 4 as though it came after Street Fighter 3 in the series.

Creating my redesigned version of Street Fighter 4 will be my sidequest for the year.

Trey

Street Fighter 4 Full Circle

A New Street Fighter 4

Trey(hehehe)

The Wise Old Owl (Willis Henry)

This is the wise character that aids Willis Henry on his adventure.

Making of Willis Henry Comic Part 3: Comic Thumbnail

Making of Willis Henry Comic Part 3: Comic Thumbnail

The next step in the comic making process; after writing the script and thumbnailing the story, was getting the story thumbnails into comic format.

This was the difficult part for me. The past two steps I was familiar with in some ways but I had never done comic layout before and the task required a different form of thought and planning.

Again to aid in the process I made a comic template in photoshop. Dividing the template into sections ( top, middle, bottom, and left, middle, right). Then I cut out each frame of the thumbnail story, panel by panel, and arranged them in the comic format.

The difficult part of arranging the panels into the comic format was in pacing. Trying to end each page with something of interest that leads to the next page. Emphasizing important panel, slowing down, or speeding up story elements, for drama and impact. All of these were concerns.

In total there are about 320 comic pages. By comparing the story thumbnail and the comic thumbnail a direct connection can be seen.

The comic template was made in photoshop to be used, adjusted, or altered.

Trey

Tropical (WaterColorSketch)

I was in a tropical mood this week.

StreetFighter4 Experiment

I was looking at the art for Street Fighter 4, and I wanted to try the style.

enjoy

DBZ Room of Spirit and Time

Watching the Seasons of DragonBall Z animation.
This was one of my favorite parts of the animation.
Goku and his son Gohan train to get to the next level, and save the world.

Eli (Willis Henry)

Willis Henry's Best Friend Eli (Elizabeth)
(still not sure on the name, but I like her design)

Making Of Willis Henry Comic Part 2: Story Thumbnails

Making Of Willis Henry Comic Part 2: Story Thumbnails

The next step in the comic making process was after making the script, thumbnailing the story.

To aid in the process a template that I used for thumbnailing animation keys, was used to thumbnail the comic story. After reading the header and paragraph of the script, and then sketch out how I saw the words visually. To help track where I was in the story and script; I alternated between red and blue pencil to mark the end of one section and the start of another.

I'm showing the first 4 pages of the thumbnail story. But in total I drew about 120 pages, in about 3 months.

I ran in to the most difficulty in the beginning and in the ending. I had thought that was going to be the case and so I spent more time in those areas. It was slow in the beginning because of my inexperience in overall comic making. I was unsure as to how to exactly draw visually what I had in the script. I had little idea as to how the characters and world would look. Even the small size of the thumbnail frames was a perceived limitation. All of these things made the beginning a challenge, but I rather quickly adapted and once I was relaxed became really fun. I think you may even see the progression in the 4 sample pages.

The difficulty in the ending was mostly in the nature of an ending. I knew what I wanted, a large battle scene, but I had never done such a scene. I was hesitant and glad I left it for the end, because as I came the the 100 page mark I was feeling much more confident. However, for the ending I had to break out of the thumnail framed pages and worked freehanded on legal sized paper. This change just seemed to help get my ideas for the ending out. So I guess, for me, in the beginning the structure of the template helped; but in the end a loose structure helped. "There are no rules, just tools." (from Robert Henri, or someone else far smarter than me)

Note: while printing out and drawing the story on paper was a big help to me in the beginning, it made the next step more difficult. Because I then had to scan into the computer all 120 pages of thumbnails. I never want to do that again! So next book I think I will open the thumbnail template in photoshop and use the Wacom tablet to ruff out the thumbnails. Streamlining the process in this way should save time and effort.

However, I will leave a blank template that you can save to your computer(hold ctrl. and click, save to desktop(mac)). You can then print it or open it in photoshop and adjust or alter it to suit your needs
Enjoy

Trey

Willis Henry Senior

Amazonian Color

I have long thought the Amazonian women could use some color and a background.

Trey

Making of Willis Henry Comic Part 1: The Script

Making Of Willis Henry Part 1: The Script

To share my process of how I started the Willis Henry comic is with the script. First I began by writing the Header(between the blue marks), which was just the idea or impression of what I wanted to happen. I then outlined the whole story just with Headers.

Once I had some idea about the whole story, even if just an early impression. I went back to the beginning and started to flesh out the story(next to the red stars), using the header as a guide. It was in fleshing out the story that I tried to move swiftly and not edit myself and just let the ideas, details, and story flow out.(I ignored the spellcheck and other mistakes)

I didn't worry about the mistakes because, I found that if I tried to write for perfection at such an early stage I would often forget some really good ideas for what I wanted next, and I became more rigid and started frustrating myself.

I was writing it for myself, it is not in any professional format. So I tried to relax and just write loose and comfortable. Concentrating only on what I wanted the story to be. Also this looseness was helpful in getting as many good ideas, plot points and story development onto the page. But it helped most of all to get rid of my fear of writing a comic (I have never attempted making a comic before).

So this is my process of starting the Willis Henry comic.


Trey

Willis Henry Turn

I am working out the character of Willis Henry and his look.

The top is a turnaround, but I still have trouble with the extreme turn views of his head.
On the bottom I was playing with color variations.

The 09 Mission

Willis Henry Get Ready!

So in this brand new year I have a mission: To make the graphic novel
"Willis Henry: Savior of the Future"

This year the blog will be about the process of making a comic. I have no idea how to make a comic so this will be a learning experience.

to the beautiful struggle
Trey

ねんがじょう09(New Years Card)

Theme/Resolution of 09 "The Struggle(War)"
[2009テーマ/もくてき
"わたしとたたかう"
わたし が こうふくしたら、
なんでも もくてきを たっせい できる ]



Happy New Year Everyone!!
みんなさん、ねんがおめでとう

The purpose of a Nengajyo (New Years Card), is to send a card to friends and family thanking them for the love and support that you have received, and the hope for their continued support in the future.

I like the sentiment, and so my goal is to create a Nengajyo every year.

The bottom two are New Year theme/resolution. My friend Miyuki taught me that on New Years it is customary in Japan, to write down what you would like to accomplish for the New Year(a theme/resolution). I like this sentiment as well, so the bottom image(kanji) is what I wrote for 08 and it means to "Try Hard".

2009 theme/resolution "Struggle(War)" (the middle Kanji/image)
The biggest war is the fight with oneself.
I think that if I can overcome myself,
I could accomplish any goal

Trey

Happy Holidays (no new post until New Years)

Where did the year go!! I thought it was just January last month!

Happy Holidays everyone (no new posts until New Years)

Enjoy the holiday season!

AvatarKokeshi

Watching the Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3. The show is so good.

Willis Henry Waiting

QwikSkribbles

I'm back to work on the blog!

This was a quick sketch as I try to sharpen my computer sketching skills.

Mythink Patchwork

Recently, I've been looking at Yoshitaka Amano's Vampire Hunter D artwork. But also Shinkawa Yoji's work on the Metal Gear Solid Series. Those mad geniuses got me to try something different. I love the smell and feel of wet paper and the ruff texture it leaves.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Some ruff sketches for one of my favorite animated programs.
I just saw the series finale!! Really great stuff. I tip my hat to the Production team. Great job!!

ChronoTrigger

ChronoTrigger is one of my all time favorite video games. At the time when Square could do no wrong with me( other hits Final Fantasy 3(US) and Super Mario RPG). The game had incredible Character Designs by Akira Toriyama the creator of DragonBall. I tried to copy these characters when I was young, and I still have the posters that came with the game. I remember devoting my life to this game when it came out on the Super Nintendo system. Ah, Good Times.

Willis Henry Begins

He's Back, No I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about Willis Henry the name of the character above. I'm working on a graphic novel starring this little guy. Hopefully I can have it done around this time next year, but not only is this my first graphic novel, but the way I see it in my head it will be a challenge for me to make. But if it wasn't a challenge I probably would not do it. Anyway, I will post the progress of the graphic novel I have titled, Willis Henry: Savior of the Future.

Le Morte D'Arthur

With this post signals the end of the Road to Magic.

Thanks and take care all