Making My First Comic 1 'Starts with a Drawing'

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It Begins!

So yes finally I am embarking on my dream of being a comic creator. Ever since day care i have known i wanted to be an artist. When I got to the day care facility the first thing i would nag the care takers about was if they could get me my folder so i could make some more art. I still have that construction paper and paste filled craft folder. Maybe one day I will share :). Now at that time i probably didnt know what a comic was but eventually through the years i was introduced to this wonderfull medium and knew from then on that this is what i wanted to do with my life! Be a Comic Book artist! Funny enough somehow i got distracted in high school by Hip Hop and a desire to make music so much so that my art suddenly went on the back burner. I always continued drawing but it was more graffiti and Hip Hop related stuff.

A New Hope

Over the past 4 or so years however i discovered podcasts and began re awakening my love for comics. Namely the one podcast that has been mostly responsible for this is my favorite one the Art & Story podcast! It has been so inspirational and educational that i subscribed to its "Supreme Membership" and now am involved in a 6 month challenge with the hosts of the show and other subscribers to create a mini comic and send a copy out to all participants. For many this will become a great addition to there current catalogue. For me it will be my very first comic! I couldnt be more excited!!!!

The Pesky Boomerangs

As you can see from the images, ive decided to do my comic on this character ive created named "Twilight". The first two images above were some of my very first conceptions of this character that i did way back in high school almost 20 years ago. Feel free to click the images for a larger view. It looks like the one on the far left had kind of a boxing theme. I think thats where the idea of the cloak came in. I think i was trying to come up with strong characters for inspiration yet i wanted this guy to have boomerangs lol. I also see the influence McFarlanes "Spawn" had on me coming through in this design.

The one in the center kind of reminds me of maybe a Mexican bull fighter or lucha libre style costume. I knew nothing of Mexican wrestling back then but somehow it seems the influence leaked through. I think back then in my young mind i was desperately grasping for ways to make cool costumes with very little life reference to expand upon. I tended to copy things i saw in other comics and try to somehow make them my own. Or at least mix and match. As you can see yet again the boomerangs came through lol. Can't get away from the boomerangs!

Resurrection of "Twilight"

In the recent 30 Characters challenge i did in November (involving both 30Characters.com and ArtandStoryPodcast.com) i created 30 characters in 30 days. On the last day i decided to do a re design of my old favorite character Twilight. This is what you see in the image on the far right. I didnt go back to my old drawings for reference at all but  the cloak, boomerangs of coarse, and black skin is what seemed to stick. Also the smoking eyes is something i seem to remember but now that i look back i don't see it in my old drawings. Oh well I think I'll keep it LOL.

Plan of Attack

So this is the direction ive decided to go with my first comic! I plan to not take this too seriously but instead try to make it a fun learning experience. I will be writing, drawing, inking, assembling and doing anything else that is required to create a comic all on my own and each one of those tasks involves tons of discipline and knowledge that takes years to develop into a decent well honed craft let alone master in 6 months. So if i take it too seriously i am destined for procrastination and disaster. So with a spirit of adventure and playfulness and as John and Paul would say "with a little help from my friends" i plan to bring forth something hopefully enjoyable.  This is going to be fun!!!!!

Id love for you to come along the ride with me and see if we can both benefit and learn from this experience. Thank You for checking in! Much more to come very shortly!

God Bless,
-Calmplex

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Links to Content mentioned in this blog:
Art & Story Podcast
30Characters.com