Idea
For our final project, our task is to produce a piece inspired by the Victorian Age 1800-1900 in the area of Stoke-on-Trent. My idea is to create a comic cover inspired by Victorian architecture around stoke, specifically one of the sketches from our life drawing sessions. I am going to create a character inspired by Victorian fashion, which will be a villain committing crimes like robbing churches for a living.
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Research
Bacground
Inspired by the structure of this building, I decided to explore its shape and details through drawing. I started with one sketch of the curled entrance with rich in texture bricks and columns. I used photoshop to sample a few colours for digital drawing as well as tried to replicate some of the bricks on the walls and surroundings. One one of our lessons we were talking about ideas and I was advised that a building in the background don't necessarily need to be detailed, it could be a silhouette. With this advice in mind, I tried to balance the number of details in my work especially on the top of the building since is going to be mostly covered by the title.
I used the golden ratio to lay out the background for my cover. I kept the church and surroundings inside of the top circle. I also tried to line up the church with some of the horizontal and diagonal lines. It took me a few attempts to aline some of the things. To do that, I changed some shapes of the building and the door. I also used the technique of adding the brick pattern in some of the places which were introduced to us in one of the presentations. I think this technique is the most effective when drawing perspective. I was able to show the details of the building without overfilling the top that is dark and is going to be covered by text.
Clothes
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At first, I was inspired by steampunk cosplay, which made me look for more steampunk elements of fashion rather than Victorian. To get a rough idea of what I am looking for, I looked up a comic called Adler. The style of clothing looked like Victorian fashion combined with elements of steampunk, such as goggles, long dresses and corsets.
In old paintings from the 18th century, we can see that most women wear dressers, whereas in Adler the character very often was trousers to be comfortable and be able to fight. I went with the idea of a shorter dress that allows movement in the fight as I wanted to keep very feminine and Victoria alike. I also decided to avoid corsets as they are very uncomfortable and limit our movement.
The robbers or criminals always hide their identity under a mask. My character on the other hand is a very elegant lady that prefers to hide under the dome of the night and a big fancy hat. She fight with grace and got her unique style of running away from consequences.
Pose
I used one of the life drawings from the lessons as a reference to push my design and idea even further. I experimented with different adding objects or changing slightly the pose to achieve a pose that will inform us about what's happening and who is the character. I also chose bright colours to contrast with a dark background to make the character stand out.
Final Product
Conclusion
In conclusion, I am very satisfied with how the colour palette and the pose turned out. I can see a lot of improvement in my digital skills and creativity. However, I could add something to the very bottom of the cover as there is a lot of empty space left. Golden ratio is something I need to practice more to improve and avoid mistakes like this in the future.