Title card

This is the title card for my comic. It's simple and to the point much like Batman's or Superman's.

I used this design as it shows a theme in the comic, but is still simple and easy to incorporate. An idea for an entire comic book series would be to have the bag and pile of money decrease and get smaller as the series went on. It's a simple and somewhat subtle change that isn't really used in comics. That's just an idea though.

Comic cover: main cover

This is my main cover for my Rake's Progress. I tried to incorporate a couple of ideas I had such as a stand off and money laying around, in the end I used both. It has more of an eye grabbing feel to it.

My only limitation was the colours I had access to, so I tried to break up the colours a bit by putting more shading in or dust blowing across.

Comic cover design: variant

The idea behind this cover was to pay homage to a fistful of dollars. I used a poster for the movie as reference and put my character design in for Clint Eastwood's character. 

The reason it's in pencil is many variant covers at the moment are just pencil covers, with one or two bits on and that's it.

Character design: Anne

Anne is based on the character of Sarah young.

This is the first design I based the dress from dresses from the same era. The problem here though is that she is too fat, which wouldn't happen in the Wild West. Especially as corsets were a mainstay of the time.

This is the design I ended up with. The dress has had little to no change but Anne herself in much slimmer, which is more fitting of the time.

Comic script

I'm making a script to work from that would be a similar, though scaled down, version of one a comic book artist would receive. I'm not the greatest writer in the world so please excuse any inconsistency. Yes this is just going to be a wall of text.

A Rake’s Progress

Page one:

Panel 1: Sunset black image of cactus and slouched figure. Caption:  ‘This wasn’t how it was meant to end.’

Panel 2: Move closer, sun lower bit of light on black image. Caption ‘I just wish there was a way I could of stopped this.’

Panel 3: Close up figure turns out to be skeleton leaning on the cactus. Caption ‘To show how this came to be we have to start at the beginning…’

Page two:

Panel 1: Inside a building, lighting coming through a window, otherwise dark shadowy. Tom speech ‘It’s time.’

Anne ‘Time for what?’

Panel 2: Close up of Tom. Black background. Tom speech ‘Time to get the train. It’s coming through town in thirty minutes.’

Panel 3: Behind Tom looking at Anne, otherwise similar to panel 1. Speech Anne ‘I thought we talked about this? You weren’t going to try anymore. You were gonna get a real job.’

Panel 4: Hand grabbing gun from table. Light from window hits near the gun. Tom speech ‘I know, but we need this. We need the money. This is the last one. I promise.’

Panel 5: Tom looking down the guns sights. Tom speech ‘Besides Father deserves what’s coming to him.’

Page three:

Panel 1: Large shot of western plains very open and dusty. Train in the distance.

Panel 2/3: Close up of train, steam engine. One carriage in shot ‘Father’s bank’ written on the side. Panel 3 is just the carriage split for emphasis.

Page four:

Panel 1: Top of cliff black figure on horse rearing up.

Panel 2: Behind black figure looking down at the train.

Panel 3: Running down the cliff/side on. Bright background and dust behind horse.

Panel 4: Horse turns at train tracks still very dusty.

Panel 5/6/7/8: Horse alongside train Tom stood on horse.

Page five:

Panel 1: Tom jumps from horse onto the side of the train.

Panel 2: Tom hanging on the side of the train.

Panel 3: Tom pulls himself up. This shot is from on the train as he pulls up. Make sure to get the motion of the train behind him.

Panel 4: Tom on top of the train opening a hatch.

Panel 5: From inside the carriage look at Tom through the now open hatch. Dark except for a gold/yellow tint.

Panel 6: Close up of Tom and the open hatch. Tom smiling. Speech ‘Gotcha!’

Page six:

Panel 1: Tom rushes inside. The door swings open. Tom holding gold bars. Speech Tom’ I’ve done it! We’re rich, we’ll never go hungry again.’

Panel 2: Behind Tom looking at Anne. Speech Anne ‘Really? You managed to get it?’

Panel 3: Tom putting a bar in her hand. Tom ‘We can do anything.’

Page seven:

Panel 1: Tom at a poker table gambling. Caption 'Tom quickly let the money run to his head.

Panel 2: Tom sat with a women on his lap.

Panel 3: Tom at a bar, drunk.

Page eight:

Panel 1: Tom stumbles through a door. Speech ' WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?'

Panel 2: Anne's angry face close up. 'I've been up all night waiting for you. So answer me!'

Panel 3: Tom leaning on a table. speech'I don't need you I don't need anyone.'

Panel 4: Tom leaving the house. Speech 'Fine. You're on your own stay out.'

Panel 5: Tom walks out of town. Caption 'when he left we never saw him again'

Panel 6: shadow leaning in a cactus like page 1.

Women's clothing in the west

So I went looking for women's clothes from the Wild West for my character design for Anne. 

This seems to be the general kind of dress that was worn. I liked how this one shows how it would of been put together.

Rationale

For my project I am going to produce key pages from a comic mainly from the start, middle and end. I will also be making at least two covers and character designs. It will be set in the Wild West and I am taking influence from the movie A Fistful of Dollars. I have been looking towards comic book artists for the project such as Frank Miller, Brett Booth, Andy Kubert, David Finch and Luke Ross.

The artists I am looking at most are Frank Miller and Luke Ross. They mainly focus on comic book art but have they have their own distinct styles, even though they have worked on similar projects over the years. I am going to use graphics markers as they give the style and look that I want for this piece.

I am focusing mainly on Tom in my pieces, I will be doing an entire storyboard for the comic. I will be designing a couple of covers to fit in with the comic style of having variant cover as well. I'm also doing the main scenes in a full comic book style.

I'm trying to keep it somewhat authentic to the wild west like costumes from the times or from movies set in that time period, but I will follow the story from A Rake's Progress. I will have designs for the main characters and backgrounds for key areas as well.