Lirielle

Some fan art of Kaylee from Serenity. Photoshop CS4.
I lost count of the hours trying to get the likeness right. Maybe 8? Finally had to give up. It’s just not quite there. I wish I were a better artist so I could see how to fix it more easily.

Finished it off with a quick hack coloring job of only an hour or so.

I was a bit rusty after not painting for at least a month it feels like. It was hard to get back into the groove.

My project at work is over, so hopefully some breathing room. Still working on my feature script. But I’m getting the itch to draw again. Maybe will pick up the webcomic again, but treat it more like an encyclopedia of the world for a little bit. Just have some fun with characters, locations, world building without worrying about narrative again just yet.

Getting in some painting practice after being inspired by the season 2 finale of Dr. Who. I’m considering adding a character to Lirielle’s story that will owe his heritage to the Tenth Doctor.

Currently I am also working on a feature script with the intent to get it up on reels by this time next year.

Unfortunately this means Lirielle is becoming a backburner project. I do find that I enjoy dabbling with Lirielle’s story whenever I get stuck on the feature scriptwriting.

Designing the costume for Lirielle in her street urchin phase. Her pose is stiff and she could look scruffier. But mostly I’m working on the design for her wool coat and skirt combo. I’m still debating whether or not to give her a hat or a cap of some sort. She’s not wearing a hat in the opening page, so I’m going to skip it for now.

This drawing ended up with a half-painted half-line art look. It’s not what I originally intended. I thought I’d try to go all painted or with a more traditional comic book coloring approach. But this is kind of in-between and has an interesting feel to it. We’ll see if my other concept work turns out like this.

The other half of Crabbe’s team is Buster. Imposing and very strong. People expect him to be the dumb muscle of the team, which Buster often uses to his advantage.

A quick study of Crabbe, one of the team of men employed to catch Lirielle. We’ll meet him and his partner in crime on page two of the story.

There’s a saying around work about putting out info about a film: “You only have one chance to make a first impression.” So I’m a little leery of posting my artwork in progress. But since hardly anyone is reading this (I know because I check my site stats) I guess it’s okay. I’d rather keep up with semi-regular updates than worry too much about if what I’m posting will make a good impression or not. I’m exploring artistically anyway, so things are fluid, and I kind of like having a little trail to follow. It’s like a “making of…” book only done in the moment rather than after the fact.

I’ve decided to go with a concept painting style for my pages. I find it easier to to play with shapes and color and imply detail rather than having to design and draw things in a lot of detail. At the speed I’m trying to work, this approach seems to suit me better. Otherwise I get bogged down in the line art.

This page is coming together in about a week, so I think it bodes well for my productivity. The goal is to paint a page one week while writing the page for the next week. Though with my work schedule it’s probably more likely to be a page every week and a half or two weeks. We’ll see.

Anyway, I like the way this page is shaping up, even if my airship is changing proportions a bit from panel to panel. I’m trying to figure out how much to design beforehand and how much to improvise during the page creation. I’m happy with the overall feel and atmosphere and thought I’d share.

A quick painting of Prof. Cromwell, or perhaps just plain Cromwell. Inspired by Michael Caine, even though in my painting he ended up looking a little too old and it’s not a very good likeness. I think he ended up looking a bit too much like Malcolm McDowell, and I didn’t want to go quite that intense. But hey, not bad for 90 minutes.

He’s going to be a mentor to Lirielle. He’s going to push her hard. I don’t think she’s going to like him very much at first. Kind of like Eliza Dolittle and Prof. Henry Higgins, who are definite influences on my characters. I watched My Fair Lady a lot while growing up, and oddly enough, in college because both me and a roommate were into it.

In the steampunk-influenced universe that Lirielle lives in, the airship is the primary mode of long distance transportation. Large areodromes are a cross between Victorian rail stations and modern-day airports. The exposed infrastructure is tough to draw, but it something I find to be very visually interesting. I found a picture of the interior of a hangar and did a quick paintover to give the idea of space and depth I’d like to see. I put a couple of ships in there for scale, but I think they turned out too modern looking for where I’d like to eventually end up.

I’m hoping to set a couple of key action sequences in this environment.

This painting turned out ok, but it’s not what I had in my head. If I were a better artist I feel like I could have come closer to the mark. Still, I’m glad i got it done, even if I had to borrow a little from photographs to help with my mediocre draftsmanship.

I was trying to set the mood for my writing. Get a sense of atmosphere for the world and try yet another pass at making Lirielle more real as a person. I made another variation on her costume, mixing some steampunk, goth, and Victorian influences.

The city behind her could be a lot better. I basically gave up trying to fill in more of the gaps in the mid ground because I’m a little burnt out on this painting after spending 3 or 4 late nights on it. I want to get back to writing.

I’ve decided to stick with the original direction for Lirielle: brunette, kind of goth, pale skin. Here are a bunch of costume ideas. I like the short hair the best. I think eventually Lirielle will go with darker eye makeup, but here I like her starting out a little more innocent looking. Not sure which dress to go with. I like the long dress and the red plaid the best.The sketch of the blonde girl will be another character in the story. I’m thinking of naming her Hunter. She and Lirielle start out as friends but end up on opposite sides of a conflict.