Designing a logo

I've been working on the logo for my comic, to make it easier I used Adobe Illustrator to make the logos. Its been months since I've used illustrator but shouldn't be difficult to remember and not so different mostly from photoshop. drawn some shapes to get it right to match the sketch on the right.

The reason why I went for this design was so it would be considered unique and also be part of the series like many companies and organisations have beside their own titles. 

1. By making a circular shape, I've made three circles for the first step, stretched them a little and moved them into places to late cut out and make more curved shapes. I would do the same thing which had taken nearly 15 minutes to get it done and ready to join the shapes together.

2. Taken a few minutes, creating multiple circles until I got this. It was a little tricky to get the curves just right but happy how it turns out and did so for the second below.

3. This was was slightly tricky to work on, while I was still rusty on adjusting the lines as the rubber for Illustrator is MUCH difficult to use then photoshop. Went towards the U/V shape, since I've still got a lot to learn how to use illustrator I had to save it and copy on to Manga studios seeing as they don't except different formats.

4. Here are the two now completed and just need to make the final piece for the logo. The one below was down using manga studios to create a point. I was intended to finish it off to make the gaps between but scrapped the idea and saw no need to do any more to it.

5. for the final step of the design, I now had to make this one more curved, getting it right was the hard part and made sure not to make them look too thin around the edge.

did a little more on the experimentation and added another circle on top, found it to be much better so far and just need to cut the part below.

6. Repeating the same progress on a smaller shape and got this. Now all I had to do was copy and paste, then reflect it on four different angles and made sure they have space between each other.

7. This is how it turns out and now ready for some colour for the next step of making the cover. I made sure the two were at a proper size and not too big to the other and plenty of space in between the two segments.

Research on Mars

As the story would take place on Mars I took some thought and time to do some research on the Red Planet for my Travelling Man project. As it's one of the most common use of sic fi genres for writers and artists alike throughout the century. John Carter of Mars, Mars Attacks, the Martian Manhunter and the War of the Worlds are some of the famous examples of the science fiction.

Mars in fiction:
It had captivated our imaginations and purpose to go there to make it our second home with the growing population on earth overcrowding and colonisation seems to be the solution for our future due to the distance between Earth and Mars and the only planet with no hostile atmosphere, but we still need to find a way to make it breathable one day to inhabit this world in the future.

In common fiction media for Mars it is usually a colony, terraformed planet or home planet of martian civilisation for many roles like invaders in movies.

Facts about Mars:

One of the main facts of how it got its name was, like many of the planets in our solar system was named after a mythological god/goddess. Mars was the Roman God of War and the son of Jupiter.

For centuries Mars has been one of the most favoured planets in our solar system, the main attention for exploration and our theory wether life had existed on the Red Planet in the past or not due to the thin atmosphere and iron oxide in the air that would make life on Earth unable to survive, there is possibility that microbes could thrive on the planet or beneath it as we still don't know much of Mars and its secrets. The two polar regions covered in ice show some promising suggestions as micro organisms can survive any environment that humans can't as scientists have studied places too hot and cold on Earth for examples. Due to the further distance from the sun and a small world, it completely lacks any oceans, only a single barren wasteland of dust and sand.

Also for the fact that since Mars doesn't have a moon but two chunks of rock in orbit, it mostly tilts about by the gravitational pull from the Sun or other large planets like Jupiter. And the seasons would be different and

The most well known features on the planet is the great large system of canyons known as the Valles Marineris, but the region is called Tharis on both old and new maps of Mars it is over 4000 km long, which in meters is 2500 miles. One of the largest canyon rifts in the entire system.

Probes have been sent to Mars to map out the entire planet and collect mineral samples from rocks for further studies.

Terraforming research:

There have been many research on how terraforming planets will work but mostly different depends on the mass and size of the planets.

Major changes for Martian environment to change for human settlements, examples like:

• Making the atmosphere more thicker and breathable using the right chemical constituents. Insert greenhouse gas to make the planet warm and cause the ice caps to melt to produce water and introdue CO2 to the polar caps.
• Outposts and colonies that proceed with the process to monitor the changes in Mars' environment and atmosphere while settling 

• Introduce algae and microbes on some parts of the planet to absorb sunlight, the ground would then warm up the atmosphere more and give Mars a new small oxygen contribution from the algae. Makes a good step to the direction for terraforming process.

• Obviously asteroids with ice would be good use to make water, humans will have some difficulty directing them towards Mars and bombard the surface. This happened on Earth billions of years ago when there was barely any signs of life after it was formed.

• Satellites to direct sunlight to direct solar radiation.

• A large moon about the size of ours would be enough to keep the planet from tilting about by the gravitational pull. Keeping a tidal effect and important for any marine creatures we introduce to Mars one day.

Non-Narrative Illustration

In the first few weeks since the second year started, I have been researching and developing my ideas for my concept designs by looking at the other illustrations and research about them. Looking into art magazines and books to build up ideas in my head.

ImagineFX

Useful sources like ImagineFX gives open information about artists and their work, introduce many styles if art, how they are done and how to find stuff like books, brushes, paints, pens, photoshop, art programmes for artists and others who appreciate fantasy and science fiction art.

Each issue of the magazine provides a tutorial from artists to explain how they used their skills to create artworks. Introduce illustrations from games, books, movies and tv series. They advertise a lot of the art, useful for artists to find that could help give ideas, what inspired people to become artists and what can help others to develop their skills further.

Flipbook 

wanting to make something to try out while working on my project, then I thought why not make something new and try it like the flip book. Knowing it be a little tricky to draw the same character on a different page so I picked an owl and draw it flying. 

To get it right I watched a few videos of owls flying in slow motion to get the movement right and draw one after the other in a second or so for the flip book. Making it easier to memorise the formation and what the owl would do next instead of using my head to imagine it.

Using 16 steps into pages for the book after finishing the animation in my sketchbook, coloured it in and giving it a sort of texture for the background. Figured it be better then having it just a drawing and no colour. The hard part was after printing them out was making sure the pages were of the same size due to the measurement mistakes so I had to be careful when cutting them into the same shape and size.

After getting it down I punctured the holes, used a string to tie the pages together into a flip book (mirrored) and actually liked how it turned out in the end with all the hard work put into this. The hard part was making sure the flip animation was good enough since this has been the first time I made one and quite enjoyed it.

Mike Mignola

Mike is a comic book artist and writer who best known for creating the Hellboy series for Dark Horse comics. Also took part in the animation projects such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire that I later recognised as it was also used for the animation adaption of Hellboy. He described his art style as "German Expressionism meets Jack Kirby by some artists he may have talked to about. I find his work in gothic horror really interesting in the way they are drawn and made expanded his imagination of the Hellboy universe of creatures, monsters and demons from folklore and legends.

http://www.artofmikemignola.com

RJ Palmer

RJ Palmer, is a freelance concept artist and illustrator who specialises in character and creature designs, and really incredible work and effort he put into his drawings. I really liked how amazing his artwork is and even make realistic pokemon that are my favourite of his illustration when I follow his work on Deviantart, morphing them into actual creatures that interact in the real world and write stories about them. I have been a fan of the series when I was a kid and still remember some of them when I watched the series, and also really been keen of seeing realistic pokemon by artists but hard to find until I found Palmer's as he goes by the name Arvalis.

He studied living and extinct animals to get the Pokemon to look with real world influence and separate them from the anime version which is a useful resource of making up a strange animal by looking at the skeleton, physical form and texture, but it does show he's been looking at prehistoric animals and dinosaurs. The colour work is really unique, really talented on the scales, skin and fur for the creatures, the characters are well thought out They are really unique and very original which I can't help but admire them and made me want to do more thought of ideas and looking at his work I can't help but look at their appearances and look at more unique animals in the natural world

http://rj-palmer.com
http://arvalis.deviantart.com
http://techgnotic.deviantart.com/journal/Jurassic-Pokemon-495463998

book series idea: New Genesis

As I have been doing many drawings of aliens, monsters and characters for ideas. I have been doing some rough ideas of how the series should take place and wanting to be a well and thought I let my fellow readers and friends know what it should be about. Holds many genres, cyberpunk, alternate history/universe and science fantasy.

New Genesis: Dance of Blades

About:
Starts out when in the mid-20th century humans discovered they were not the only sentient species living on Earth, three different races: Kronan Ree, Lemurian and Djinn approached them as the nations were still at each other's throats. Allowing their paranoia to overwhelm them, war lashed out on the three races despite the three grouped together to form peaceful relations with the majority of humans.

After nearly nearly several years the war came to an end by a neutral organisation known as the Society, dedicated to maintain the balance of power on Earth and an event which was known as New Genesis that changed nearly all life on the planet, causing mutations on some species and individuals by alien technology.

The four races now live in co-existence after many decades. But a threat lurking within the shadows from space and on Earth, leading the world into a new war unlike any other in history.

Characers:
coming soon...

DC Comics

DC comics has numerous stories about superheroes protecting the innocent from super villains and doing what is right. Forming crime fighting groups like the Justice League, Green Lantern Corps, Teen Titans and Young Justice. It is one of the most popular comic book series and has been published for nearly a century since the first issues of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman show ere the original and common members of the Justice League.

Many characters in the DC universe have super human abilities, wear fancy outfits and disguises to conceal their identities but the villains are well known in public when arrested. But not all characters are entirely human as the majority of them are mostly alien, supernatural entities, gods, mutants or meta-humans. Although not all of them have background histories to know how they received superpowers in the first place.

That wouldn't have been a problem in the past but over the years, fans want solid info on how the characters came to be as they are like Superman who was a baby being sent to Earth after Krypton blew up and recieved his powers under the exposure of a yellow sun.

Batman became a crime fighting vigilant after witnessing the death of his parents while under the impersonation of a multi millionaire Bruce Wayne.

The Green Lanterns use their rings made from an energy source made by an ancient race of small blue skinned humanoids known as the Guardians of the Universe and allow the users' will to manifest whatever they think off so long as they wear them. It is also same for the other power rings but are different by emotions and formed their own groups like the Sinestro Corps, Red Lanterns, Orange lanterns, the Black Lanterns, Indigo Tribe and Blue Lanterns.

There are many characters who use magic from their and others from chemicals either from experiments or accidents which in real life would've been fatal but they're more popular in fiction in other comics also.

But what I can't stand is how too powerful some characters are like Superman who was the most powerful hero in his time, doing things impossible with super strength, incredible speed and flight to defend the world. But over the years the comic writers did seem to give him weaknesses like Kryptonite and knowing that there are other characters as strong as he is. It should be important for characters like DC not to have overpowered heroes and villains as they would have to learn to adapt their abilities.