3 Story Ideas
1). Historical story.
For a history-based story, I looked into the life of Maria Curie, a known physics and chemist. She is remembered for her discovery of radium and polonium, but the biggest of her achievements is finding cancer treatments. That's basic information I found by typing her name into Google and that you can probably find in any history book. To be able to build an exciting story inspired by this wonderful woman who made some world-changing discoveries.
Research
To find out more in-depth information about the life of Maria Curie I looked into my favourite source of every historical drama that is out there, a YouTube channel called Historia Bez Cenzury (translation: uncensored history) run by a historian Wojciech Drewniak who studies history, writes books about it and also gives talks at universities in Poland. His videos focus on gathering authentic historical facts that are summarized into short videos about important people and events in our history. I was very happy to find one short video of his about Maria Curie, but also a recording from a longer talk about Maria Curie he gave at the University of Wroclaw in Poland.
Here is a short summary of her story that I noted while watching the two videos:
Maria grows up known as a nerd that always read books so passionately that it is very hard to break her focus. One day her mother passes away due to lung cancer. Shortly after, her sister also passed away. Multiple deaths in her family in a short time led her family to fall into poverty. When Maria’s father lost his job Maria and one of her sisters were planning to flee to France. However, the trip for two proved to be too costly, so Maria stayed back in Poland, while her sister flew to France to study. Although Maria’s sister would send her some money, Maria decided to find a job to earn enough money to move to France. Her first job was being a teacher, but she didn’t like working there as the owner’s son of the school was in love with her. Since the love was one-sided Maria soon flee to France to live with her sister.
In Maria’s adult life she tends to forget to eat her meals or light a fire to keep her warm while doing her daily tasks and research. However, this didn’t stop her from meeting a man that impressed her with his knowledge. Piotr Curie was a physician who wasn’t into flowers and chocolates type of things when it came to girls. He managed to charm Maria … In the end she discovers radium, and her husband dies.
Conclusion
Maria’s story is very tragic due to her losing first her mother, then her sister and in the end her husband. However, it is also very adventurous with bits of romance due to her being extremely busy with her passion for science, but she still found time for love. She even moved the country to continue to grow her interests. This is definitely a quite long and complicated at times story. Taking that into consideration I decided that instead of making a comic with Maria’s biography I will change it but keep the main point of a female scientist traveling to across the world to make a world changing discovery. I changed the name of the main character to Eva and made up a story inspired by Maria Curie.
Here is what I came up at first:
Synopsis (200 words)
Eva was fascinated about science ever since she was a little girl. One day a mysterious illness took away her mother. Her family started to crumble and fall into poverty. Her biggest dream was to become chemist/Physicist, but her living situation didn’t allow her to buy the necessary means to do so. Everything changed when she received an invitation to join her younger sister and live with her aboard. She started new life aboard where she continues her research about a cure for the illness that took her family away from her. There she met a physician, and they work together on a cure until they are parted by death. They enjoy working with radioactive materials and get closer to each other by spending their evenings watching radiating results of their work. The result of their research exceeds Eva’s expectation, and her discoveries were used to treat many health problems. After the amount of time Eva spent experimenting with various chemicals in her lab she falls ill and dedicated the remains of her time to share her knowledge and all the results of her work with the world.
Elevator Pitch (40 words)
After Eva’s mother passed away due to a mysterious illness her family starts to crumble. Living in a poverty forces her to move aboard where she meets a physician who helps her to find a cure. Is Maria’s passion for science enough to make a world changing discovery?
Changes I should consider
Considering that last semester I didn’t manage to finish colouring my comic, for this project I was planning a short story, 14-16 pages. With that in mind my first draft of synopsis was a bit too long. In my research I found that Maria lost many people in her life, I decided to limit the number of deaths in my story to 1. Therefore, cut the part of the story where other people die and go straight to the point of cure discovery. This twist on historical story will give a character tragic past that will motivate the main character to make her important discovery.
Another thing that I read online about Maria and her family was that her mom had a lung cancer that was discovered after she passed away. With this fact in mind, I decided to connect this event with the main character in my story making a world changing discovery. That’s how I came up with the idea of Eva searching for a cure to treat illness that takes away people living in her world.
Here is the final draft of the story inspired by historical event:
Synopsis
Eva was fascinated about science ever since she was a little girl. One day a mysterious illness took away her mother. Her family started to crumble and fall into poverty. Her biggest dream was to find a cure, but her living situation didn’t allow her to buy the necessary means to do so. Everything changed when she received an invitation to join her younger sister and live with her aboard. She started new life aboard where she continues her research about a cure for the illness that took her mother away. There she met a physician, and they work together on a cure. They enjoy working with radioactive materials and spend their evenings watching radiating results of their work. In the end the research exceeds Eva’s expectation, and her discoveries were used to treat many health problems.
Elevator Pitch
After Eva’s mother passed away due to a mysterious illness her family starts to crumble. Living in a poverty forces her to move aboard where she meets a physician who helps her to find a cure. Is Eva’s passion for science enough to make a world changing discovery?
2). An ancient narrative from a different point of view.
One of the cities in Poland is knows for its legend about the dragon. The legend tells a story that happened in ancient times, in a cave under the Wawel Hill. The Dragon was known for terrorising people living in Krakow. In the end the punishment for his greed was death by being tricked into eating a poison.
To this day the dragon is a symbol of a Krokow and even has a statue that supposed to represent the dragon.
I found a full story on Wikipedia telling a legend about a mighty knight who slain the dragon. However, the way the story pictures the dragon makes me wonder was the dragon bad? and was the knight truly a good person? I came up with a scenario where the story would be a mystery and the knight would have to solve it like Sherlock Holmes. The different take on this ancient story would be that dragon wouldn’t be truly bad but would be judged as one for his scary appearance. I imagine the way to make the dragon innocent of the crimes happening in the kingdom would be telling the story from his point of view.
Synopsis (200 words)
Disappearance of women in the kingdom was a huge mystery. The king sent countless of best soldiers and promises them high rewards, but none of them ever returned. One day the king made a deal with his son that if he solves the mystery and gets rid of the problem, he shall become the next king. The son is a knight who is following the bloody trails of disappearing women to solve the mystery. People of this kingdom say that it is a curse. However, it becomes clear that something more than spirits and curse are involved in this when he discovers range of tunnels under the city. He follows the trails left in the tunnels until he discovers a dragon nest made of human bones. He realized that a small human like him stands no chance against a huge dragon, so instead he decided to outsmart the beast. He prepares a stuffed animal filled with animal meat and poison and lures the beast out at night. The greedy beast swallows the stuffed animal whole. Its stomach burns as the poison starts working. The dragon tries to run towards the river to drink some water, but the knight slows it down until the monster collapses on the floor. The knight brings the head of the dragon to the king as a prove that the problems of this kingdom are over.
Elevator Pitch (40 words)
Disappearance of women in the kingdom was a huge mystery. The king sent countless of his best soldiers to deal with the problem, but none of them have ever returned. One day the son of the king takes on a challenge of solving the mystery. He makes some shocking discoveries during his investigation. Will he be able to save the kingdom and come back alive?
3). A tale told purely through visuals.
Recently I bought a new comic book called Marvel Meow. It tells short stories about marvel universe and cats helping superheroes doing their job. Inspired by the idea of cats joining the forces with superheroes and saving the world I came up with idea of making second part to the story I made on my second year of university. The idea was to make cat dragons join forces with people in a war against evil gods for the better future. Since the story focus on cats the comic would be told from the perspective of cat dragon that can't speak. Therefore the comic would be purely through visuals.
Elevator Pitch (40 words)
Enemies at war become friends in order to save their whatever left of their city. However, to put an end to their evil government who uses people as pawns to continue the war, they will need more than numbers in people to end this war. They make friends with cat-dragons and together they join forces to fight evil.
Synopsis (200 words)
In the world of never-ending war between two cities, people discover that their world is corrupted by evil, and their own government uses people as pawns to keep the war going. During one of the missions in the field two enemy soldiers become friends and quickly realized they were brainwashed in believing that the people of their cities are the evil ones. They joined the forces to defeat the evil government, but it turns out that there is someone more powerful pulling the strings. In order to fight against gods, they need more than numbers in people to free their cities of war. They try to tame a wild Cat-Dragon and discover that behind its scary appearance it is just a cute, cuddly cat who loves fish. People make a deal to provide the cats with delicious fish as long as they help them defeat their enemies. The cat dragon summons its friends to join the forces and together with humans they track the evil gods. In the end they defeat the gods by taking their powers.
Feedback from presentation
After presenting my ideas to industry panel and class the vote began and my first idea inspired by Maria Curie was chosen for this project. My first idea had lots of research and thought put into it, so I was happy that it was chosen because I could work on a story happening around 19th century. On the other hand, I was sad that I couldn't do fun story about cats. However, the historical story has more potential to become a fantasy story that can appeal to more people than just cat lovers.
Also my target audience are teenagers and young adults so it would make more sense to create a fantasy story of a character on an exciting journey rather than tales of a cat dragon, which sounds like a book for kids. A story for wider range of audience with concept that's popular among readers these days is also more likely to be accepted by publishers like Image Comics that give a chance beginner artist at getting their work published.
Radiating Ideas Script
Page 1
This page introduces the place (Steam punk city) and the main character Eva. She lives in a small, cluttered house along with her mother Mabel, father Oscar and sister Clara.
Panel 1: Establishing shot of the steam punk city.
Panel 2: Close up panel of Eva’s hand holding a vial with some glowing liquid inside.
Panel 3: Eva running experiments in her room with old, cheap equipment she owns. Suddenly, Eva’s mom calling her to help her out with errands.
Eva’s mom- Eva we need to get some stuff from the market!
Panel 4: Eva putting on her cross-body bag and runs downstairs.
Eva- Coming mom!
Page 2
On this page Eva and her mother are shopping around the steam punk city.
Panel 5: Shot of the market filled with people and noise. It’s a long street full of stalls and small shops with all kinds of things.
Panel 6: Maria going shopping with her mom. She helps her mother walk by holding her arm. Her mother is very weak person due to her illness.
Panel 7: They are stuck in a long queue to a pharmacy. Eva’s mother offers to wait in the queue while her daughter browses around the market.
Eva’s mother- Why don’t you look around meanwhile I wait. Cough! Cough!
Eva- Are going to be, ok?
Panel 8: Eva looks worried at her mom while she coughs because of illness.
Eva’s mother- Looks like I will be stuck here for a while.
Panel 9: Eva runs to check out her favourite shops with enthusiasm.
Eva- I will be back soon!
Page 3
This page shows Eva shopping for useful resources for her experiments to find a cure for a mysterious illness.
Panel 10: Close up on Eva’s hand holding very few coins.
Panel 11: Eva looking closely at various ores and magic crystals at the market.
Eva: All of these are so pricy!
Panel 12: Eva looking disappointed at the price of the stones and equipment as they are too expensive for her.
Eva: If I only had enough money, I could come up with a cure for mom (thoughts).
Panel 13: Eva sees people gathering around and whispering in the distance.
People whisper in the background- It’s Mrs… What happened? Is she dead?
Panel 14: She squeezes through the crowd of people to see what happened.
Panel 15: She sees her mom lying on the ground.
Eva-Mom!
Page 4
Eva and her family at her mother’s Funeral.
Panel 16: Close up of Eva’s mother’s gravestone.
Eva- A mysterious illness has been around for a while now. (thoughts)
Panel 17: Eva’s family standing in the graveyard grieving.
Eva- Since there is no cure, death is inevitable (thoughts)
Panel 18: Eva turns around, but just before she leaves, she makes one last promise to her mom.
Eva- Don’t worry mom I will find a way to save everyone.
Page 5
Back home two sisters are having a serious conversation.
Panel 19: Eva comes back home from a funeral.
Eva- Dad, I’m home.
Panel 20: Her father lays drunk on the table in the kitchen. Many empty bottles are left on and around the table.
Eva- Everyone is grieving differently. (Thoughts)
Panel 21: Her sister pulls Eva aside to talk.
Eva’s sister- We need to talk.
Panel 22: Eva’s sister takes Eva’s hands and put a serious face expression on.
Eva’s sister- Our family wasn’t doing great lately.
Panel 23: Eva looking disappointed and looking down.
Eva’s sister- Now that mom is gone…
Panel 24: Close up on Eva’s eyes slowly tear up.
Eva’s sister- Our situation won’t get any better.
Page 6
Panel 25: Eva quickly turns around her head to her sister and makes a serious face expression.
Eva- I can get a job and…
Panel 26: Her sister cuts her off half the sentence. Eva seems shocked at first.
Eva’s sister- I’m moving aboard… come with me.
Panel 27:
Eva’s sister- They have good universities and work pays well.
Panel 28: Eva’s eyes lit up and only thing on her mind is money = equipment for her experiments = cure
Eva- Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!
Page 7
Two sisters at new location. They moved aboard and found a new home.
Panel 29: Two sisters going on adventure to a big steam punk city. Sisters are traveling in a balloon and look down at the city.
Panel 30: Two sisters arrive at their new rented home.
Eva’s sister- This is where we are going to stay.
Panel 31: Eva looking around her new bedroom that already has a small bed and desk.
Eva’s sister- The owner is my old friend, so he won’t charge us too much rent.
Panel 32: Eva looking into a newspaper for a job offer.
Panel 33: One of the jobs offers that attracts Eva’s attention is a part time chemistry teacher position at a primary school. It requires basic science knowledge, offers decent salary and immediate start.
Eva- I guess I could be a teacher.
Panel 34: Eva holds newspaper next to her and shows it off to her sister.
Eva’s sister- You can do that first thing tomorrow. I’m off to bed now.
Eva- Goodnight.
Page 8
On this page Eva is traveling to a new location, a primary school where she takes on a new role as a chemistry teacher. The school director August shows her around.
Panel 35: The next day Eva visiting the school she wants to work at. The director of the school walks her to a class she will be teaching.
August- You seem to be very passionate about science.
Panel 36: Close up picture of Eva opening the door to the classroom.
August- Kids going to love you.
Panel 37: View of the classroom filled with kids.
Panel 38: Eva standing in front of a black board with school director. Next to them is a desk with some chemistry equipment and on the walls lots of posters with periodic table and other things.
Kinds- Good morning, Sir August.
Panel 39: Close up Eva waving and smiling.
August- Give a warm welcome to your new chemistry teacher, Miss Eva.
Page 9
Panel 40: Splash page of Eva performing some spectacular experiments to teach kinds about chemical reactions etc. This page should include some explosions, glowing potions, and smoke.
Page 10
At the end of Eva’s shift, she meets a physician named Harvey.
Panel 41: Kinds heading home, Eva organising her desk before going home.
Eva: Teaching takes lots of time and energy. I still want to work on the cure when I get home. (thoughts)
Panel 42: Eva lost in thoughts leaves the classroom and locks the door.
Eva: I need more equipment and safe workspace. My sister won’t forgive me if I blow up our house. (thoughts)
Panel 43: She turns around and bumps into a man passing by who is reading a newspaper article and doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings.
Panel 44: The man smiles and apologises.
Harvey- My apology, I was so invested in the new science article I wasn’t paying attention.
Panel 45: He looks at the sign saying Chemistry Room at the door behind Eva.
Harvey: Are you the new chemistry teacher?
Page 11
Panel 46: Eva looking down on the newspaper he is holding in his hand.
Eva: Yes…Wait, the new science article was already published!
Panel 47: They have look at the newspaper together fascinated by its content.
Eva: Let me see it!
Panel 48: The physician fascinated by the experiments run by scientists described in the article and wants to continue the research.
Harvey- I will test their theory once I get to my personal lab.
Panel 49: Eva’s eyes open wide, and a big smile shows on her face when she heard about the word lab.
Eva-Personal lab!
Harvey- I almost forgot to introduce myself, I’m Harvey.
Panel 50: The physician is surprised by the fact he just meets someone who is also interested in science.
Harvey- You seem to like science too. What is your name?
Page 12
Panel 51: Eva daydreaming about a place with right equipment to run her experiments.
Eva- I’m Eva. I wish I had a personal lab; I could work on a cure for the mysterious illness.
Panel 52: The physician thinking deeply about what Eva just said.
Harvey- She is knowledgeable in chemistry and wants to develop a cure. (thoughts)
Panel 53: Eva gives her best shot at being nice and smiling as she hopes she could use a lab.
Harvey: Such potential shouldn’t be waisted (thoughts).
Eva: This is my chance to get free lab access. (thoughts).
Panel 54: He riches out to Eva and invites her to join him.
Harvey: Would you perhaps want to join me?
Panel 55: Eva takes his hand in excitement and yells.
Eva- I would love to!
Page 13
Panel 56: At the lab. View on the well-equipped, large lab.
Harvey: Feel free to use anything you need.
Panel 57: Eva punts on her goggles.
Panel 58: She takes sample of expensive, old rock and mixes it into a vial. He helps her with small things like passing bottles and tools.
Eva: I can’t believe it. I can use the most expensive resources that I could not afford before. (Thoughts).
Panel 59: The physician and Eva admiring their radiating results of work. Eva looking proud.
Harvey: I never seen such a radiating result.
Panel 60: He hands her documents and samples to take to science academy.
Harvey: You should take your discovery to science academy. They will help you with the rest.
Page 14
Eva headed to a new location the Science Academy to consult them about her research.
Panel 61: View of the Science Academy, a large Victorian building.
Panel 62: A group of serious looking scientists refuse to accept Eva’s research.
Scientist 1- We won’t accept your research.
Panel 63: Close up of angry Eva.
Eva- Why!?
Panel 64: All 3 scientists.
Scientist 1: You are not student of our academy.
Scientist 2: Our academy wouldn’t accept someone like you.
Scientist 3: Don’t waste our time.
Panel 65: Look on Eva’s face like her whole world just collapsed.
Page 15
Since the Science Academy didn’t accept Eva’s research, she went back to the lab to tell Harvey bad news.
Panel 66: Back at the lab. Eva comes back looking very depressed.
Eva- They’ve refused to accept the cure.
Panel 67: Her friends the physician takes her hands and promises to help her.
Harvey- Not everything is lost.
Panel 68: The physician looking down and thinking hard.
Eva- I worked for this my whole life and it turned out to be useless.
Panel 69: Close up on the pills (box of medicine) lying on a side of the desk.
Harvey- It is a cure, right? Then we just need to offer it to patients in the right form.
Panel 70: Close up Eva injecting a liquid cure into a transparent pill. It makes it glow.
Eva: Harvey is right.
Page 16
Eva and Harvey test the cure at a hospital where Harvey works.
Panel 71: At the hospital. They give a medicine to one of the patients.
Eva: Please take this medicine, it will help you.
Panel 72: The marks on the skin of the patient disappear.
Eva: The rashes disappeared.
Panel 73: Eva hugs the physician.
Eva: It worked!
Panel 74: The physician assures Eva that from now on the medicine will be given to all he sick people.
Script feedback
In my script the story was ending on Eva and Harvey finding the cure. However, during my feedback with Kevin Gunstone we both agreed that it’s a good story, but the ending feels like the story is unfinished. Kevin suggested adding additional page or a panel to finish the story with characters helping sick people. I came up with solution of adding extra panel with two characters going back to where the story begin, at the market where they would tend a stall with the medicine they made and give to sick people.
Changes in a script script:
Panel 74: The physician assures Eva that from now on the medicine will be given to all he sick people.
Harvey: Let’s give it to all sick people.
75: Harvey and Eva sell the medicine at the stall in the city market.
In the end we made it. We saved the world.
Choice of aesthetic for the comic
During one of the tutorials with panel Paul McCaffrey, he told me to think about what comics I specifically would like to make after university. Thinking about the comics I made in the past three years I enjoyed working on stories inspired by medieval to the modern era, fantasy genre more than futuristic or cyberpunk-like stories. Considering that the story of Maria Curie takes place in the 19th century, it gives me the possibility to create a fantasy story inspired by 19th-century fashion and architecture with some elements of steampunk aesthetics, which would go well with the science equipment and all the glowing potions the main character would make in my comic.
The reason behind choosing to include fantasy elements in my story is that it gives me lots of freedom to draw the main character and her surroundings unrealistically, which means I can picture her mixing glowing potions interestingly and magically.
What I learnt from my second year of university is that particular styles and stories attract people who are interested in similar things. For example, the comic I created inspired by the cyberpunk aesthetic caught the attention of people who played the game Cyberpunk and liked the style and colours of it. This made me think that made me think that going for a style and aesthetic that I would love working on in the future will help me to attract the right audience. Moreover, the fantasy genre is also one of the most read among most ages, so I hope that the style and genre of this comic will attract more people.
Character design
The main character in my story was going to be inspired by Maria Curie and the 19th Century. While looking for inspiration for character design, I came across a book called Handbook of English Costume in the 19th Century by C. Willett Cunnington. Based on these designs, I gave Eva a long dress with puffy sleeves to fit into the standards of fashion from the 19th Century. Since Eva is supposed to be a scientist, I thought she should be able to hold her potions and equipment somewhere, so I designed a bag and attachment for the belt that allows her to have her equipment on her whenever she may need it.
Maria Curie preferred things to be practical rather than caring about appearance, so she asked her husband to get her a black wedding dress that she could use for work in a lab. Following this logic, I think the main character in my story would prefer the footwear to be practical like flat boots rather than high hills. For the colour of the outfit for the main character, I chose dark green as it would have the same practical use in a lab and prevent clothes from showing all the stains. Another reason for picking this colour is that around the 19th Century, people used to use a poisonous green dye containing arsenic. I thought since Maria Curie suffered from poisoning from working with radium for years, a green dress could be inspired by this fact.
the story was going to be set in a steampunk world.
The story was going to have 6 characters that were going to appear often throughout the story, so in their designs I wanted to make sure there is colour and shape representation for each character. Keeping in mid that the main character colour aesthetics is green I picked yellow, purple, red, orange and blue colours for all the other characters.
The second character in my story was a sidekick tasked with helping the protagonist in the discovery of a cure. Inspired by the 19th Century I gave him a vest with a large crosshatch pattern as it would give his clothes this old look and the pattern would be big enough to be visible in small panels of the comic. For his colour palette, I chose red to symbolize love, inspired by Maria Curie’s love story, where she falls in love with a man who is as passionate about science as much as she is. Additionally, I gave the character a monocle to look smart since he was a physician in my story. Lastly, I gave him a hand prosthetic to match the monocle to represent some steampunk details in his outfit.
Side Characters
For other characters I looked up some hats and different dresses form the book about 19th century fashion. I gave Eva’s sister bigger, round sleeves and round bottom of the dress to make her look appear gentle in the contrast to Eva who is a cool looking scientist. For the parents I wanted to make them appear older and more elegant, so I gave them hats, longer coat and a dress with long sleeves.
Thumbnails
For the past three years, I have been doing my thumbnails of panels as small squares. Next, plan the arrangement of panels on each page, to then make large sketches of pages. However, it was taking twice as long, so I decided to do thumbnail pages with panels instead of singular panels. It helped me think about panel arrangement ahead of sketching the panels. It helped me picture how to picture each scene and how much space I would have in each panel. This method proved to be a more effective way of working for me.
Tutorial feedback
For my tutorial aside from thumbnails I prepared two sketches of pages in progress. During my tutorial suggestion was made to redraw the stairs on page one, panel 4 as the way the stairs bend look a bit unnatural. To correct that I took different reference for the stairs and corrected them.
The second suggestion was to flip panel 2 on page 2 to make the people queue the other way so that the pictures lead the reader from left to right. I simply rotated the picture in this panel to fix it.
The last suggestion was to make the character in panel 5 on page 2 run to the right side instead forward to lead the reader to another page. I drew character again running in the direction that was suggested to me.
New reference picture I will be using to correct the stairs on page 1. You can see the results below in the Sketched pages section.
Sketched and lined pages
Reference picture of a periodic table
Throughout three years at university, I learnt how to draw backgrounds from various perspective as well as basics about drawing rooms with furniture at accurate angles by using perspective.
On page one I used perspective to draw a room with some furniture. I also used a reference picture for a periodic table in panel 3 as I wanted it to be an accurate science reference and since the main character is passionate about science, I thought posters like this one would fit the theme of her bedroom.
I also used a golden ratio under the layers of all my sketches to make sure all the important areas are filled and the right amount of details in the areas that a readers focus on.
Reference picture of a bridge.
Reference pictures of buildings.
I also took inspiration for the architecture from a book called Victorian Architecture by Robert Furneaux Jordan. Based on spiky rooftops and square shapes of the buildings in this time period I build an establishing shoot of a city that can be seen on page 1 panel 1. I also added a bridge with a train that going through the city inspired by the one I found in a book.
One thing in my sketch of the first panel on page one that bothered me was the amount of details. I wanted it to look like a busy city full of various buildings and mechanical elements. The buildings felt flat and empty, so I came up with solution of adding some details and texture. I added roof tiles on some of the rooftops, some brick, parts that looked like welded metal on some of the builds, lots of windows, chimneys and rods. Adding all these elements made the city more alive and busy.
On page 2 and 3 I mostly used one point perspective to draw streets with buildings running from one side of the panel to another. Working digitally in Clip Studio Paint was a good decision because it made drawing perspective easier. It allowed me to go over the borders of page and correct any mistakes or make any changes that needed to be done without drawing tons of lines over each other like I did traditionally when learning perspective.
I applied the same technique of adding details to my line work on page two in panel one where some of the buildings needed some variations in details
Comic covers
Title
For the title I used Copperplate Gothic Bold font in ClipStudio. I moved the letters R,A,G and I further apart form others to make space for a little illustration of yellow radioactive sign, green radium element and a vial with orange liquid. The three colours were picked to create analogous colour scheme for the title to make it stand out form the background.
Reference pictures
Front cover
Inside front cover
Reference pictures
Front Covers
The inside front cover was inspired by the inside cover of a comic called Lovesick by Luana Vecchio. Luana's inside cover was a black and white front cover with extra information about who wrote and illustrated it. Compared to other comic I looked into which was Marvel Meow with adverts on both inside covers, black and white illustration was a better option since I will be already advertising myself through a degree show and I don't sell any other comics at the moment that I could advertise people to read. Moreover, I think the black and white inside cover looks very professional for an artist who self-publish their work.
Using Airbrush tool in Clip Studio Paint gave the potions very nice glow and misty effect that I wanted to achieve. Also using Sparkle Decoration tool to add little stars and sparkles made this piece look magical. My goal of turning this story into a fantasy comic book was successful.
Back page
On the back inside cover I put some bonus artwork, my social media name and a little "thank you for reading" so my readers feel appreciated for supporting my work.
My back cover includes an interesting blurb as well as comic rating 16 because there is death of the protagonist's mother in the story.
Back inside cover
Back cover
Comic preview and cost of printing
For printing my comic I'm going to use a website called Mixam that I used for my previous project in the past. The comic is going to be printed in US Standard size and the cost is going to be between 30 and 33 pounds for 20 copies that I will be selling at the Degree Show. In case the copies of the comic don't sell I will list them on Ebay and link the shop in my social media as there are people among my followers who have previously asked to buy my work.
All pages from the preview turned out fine and didn't need further adjustment. The comic is ready to be printed.
Final thoughts
The story inspired by historical event turned out excellent despite being only 16 pages. My past stories always felt unfinished, having jumps between times and places and missing the moral of the story, which made them feel like a pointless journey. The Radiating Ideas story shows that through hard work, making sacrifices and making connections achieving dreams is possible.
Although I think this is my greatest project, if the time allowed me I would make it longer, because it's an amazing story that I truly enjoyed working on.
After working hard for three years and getting some helpful feedback from professionals, I learnt how to successfully write, illustrate, publish and promote my graphic novels. I consider my last project the most successful out of all the work I've done during my time at university. I came to university hoping that it would help me to polish my existing skills, develop new ones, and prepare me to utilize them in life after university and in the career I wanted to pursue. Looking at my latest project, I can proudly say I'm a comic book artist able to turn dream stories into amazing graphic novels. Moreover, this course taught me so much independence that I'm looking forward to writing another story, publishing it on online platforms and attending comic cons as an interdependent artist.