reaganlodge
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April 2016 Concept Art - FIGHT ON THE AIRSHIP
🕑 Added 2019-07-27 18:02:40 +0000 UTCA REALLY early bit of visual development. In 2016 I was working on storyboards for my portfolio to apply to film studios with, which is when I got struck with the idea for Wyit. Or, more specifically, how to take the old character from my FLIGHT comics and give him a story I had the inner fire to tell and finish.
Within a week I knew what the beginning and ending of the story were, but the stuff in between was hazy and mysterious. I was just piecing together the story from images that'd flash in my head while listening to the right music (usually at the gym).
I specifically remember working out while listening to Distant Worlds - The Bombing Mission (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DRp_XME44o) when I had the idea for a very Rocketeer/Skycaptain-inspired fight on an airship. Sketched it out really quick in a 3D concept design class I was in, being taught by TyRubin Ellingson.
Didn't have a clue who the Big Guardian character was or who he & Wyit were running from, what that huge sword was about, or who was flying those ships, but the energy was there and that's all I needed. Wyit was also still a basic anthropomorphic fox in this image, which changed later on when I fantasy'd up him & Rek's canid race a little more.
This scene actually got cut early on and didn't appear in the 250 page draft of WYIT that I sketched out in 2017, but re-appeared (not exactly as depicted here, but a big skybrawl nonetheless) when I rewrote/redrew the book last year to its shorter, more impactful form.
UNFORTUNATELY I lost the original working-size file for this drawing. Sad!!
Comments
I like the idea of an ashcan/sketchbook volume, if you have enough concept art to compile together that is? A lot of people would probably be interested in that too. It's a good idea, for sure.
Reagan
Thanks Aimee. I'll definitely make a printed component for a lot of this development work. Still deciding if it'll be in the back of the book or a separate ashcan/sketchbook volume that might also go into the crowdfunding campaign.
I remember this piece. Really neat to see the early visual development. That would look really cool to display as early concept story art at the back of the graphic novel.
Reagan
Thanks Jaso. On why I fictionalized Wyit's race/species, it mostly just came down to wanting a little more stylistic liberty than if I were drawing him as a literal anthropomorphized fox. I've always noticed that if you draw one real-world animal in the story, the viewer is mentally primed to assume that the rest of the world is populated by humanoid equivalents to all other animals (birds, lizards, amphibians etc). Kinda like Zootopia, Redwall, Disney's Robin Hood etc. Wyit's world has a more limited population variety. It's just the canids, varks (pig/aardvark people) and sable (rabbit-like people). Also just wanted the world to seem more "Other" too, kinda like adding a 2nd moon to clue the viewer in that this isn't merely an anthropomorphic version of our world.
Love the atmosphere of this pic. <3 Interesting to see the what Wyit evolved from. What actually inspired the "fantasy-fied" version of Wyit's species that you ended up going with? I dare say that his design in this pic looks great too!
Reagan
he does BIG
Ganz toll!
