This is our portfolio review by Martin Griffiths, the full interview can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvQ1YfKWlHo
MG: They’re interesting characters ain’t they! My first impression is that they’re really good characters, you’ve obviously really thought about the way they look and everything. I sort of want to know more about them. Are they a group? what’s they’re function of a group?
Us: Some of these are villains some are heroes. They’ve each got quite a big flaw with them, so like you’ve got one who’s depressed, one who’s schizophrenic, ones got an alcohol problem, it not the main story but it gives the character a personal struggle throughout their arc and to overcome.
MG: Well they’re good characters. Especially that you’ve got your own characters. If I was a publisher, and you gave me this, I’d think oh there’s a lot of information you’re giving me, as well as the look of the characters and art so thats good. Thats almost a tall version of Rocket Raccoon, have you seen Guardians of the Galaxy? I guess if you look at him his proportions are more raccoon like. But I won’t say that (the level of anthropomorphism) is a bad thing, its just how far do you take it? Its good they have background stories because if you do that whenever you writing them you can look back at their history and think about what they’d do or say, so if you’ve got that all worked out thats great.
These are great character sheets. They’re nice designs. how long have you been designing the characters for?
Us: Each characters had about 3 or four iterations but all of these have been done over summer.
MG: How do you go about colouring?
Us. We draw them all, pen them in and scan them into photoshop to colour.
MG: Ahh lot of nice work nice inking nice work. Lot of hard work. Where would you like to take them from here?
Us: We’re hoping to start pitching to publishers next year but for now we want to work on our art and improving, say our clothing or the anatomy or, I don’t know, is there anything that points out to you you think could improve?.
MG: No I’d think so, honestly I’m not trying look, sometimes when you look through portfolios you notice something straight away. I can’t really criticise this. They are your own characters your own style, you’re not trying to do a Marvel style, theres nothing wrong with the anatomy, the poses are great, there's nothing wrong with these at all. Its a good style. I mean if you were showing me a load of human characters say I might say ohh the anatomy is a bit funny there but
these are so unique in what they are and animals you’re playing around with so its new. I mean if someone asked me to make a bear look like an indian I’d hope to do something like that. This is all fine, this is a great character (walrus).
No these are great. I’d love to see them in a comic strip with story telling,
Us: we could show you some rough storyboards?
MG: Yeah yeah, but these are great. Okay so I can see ways of making these a bit more dramatic angles, but the best way to do a breakdown is not worry about angles just visually get it down into a comic grid that you like. My first thought with this one (Kunjana’s), and I’m not saying this is the way to go, but you normally think an establishing shot, and I’d say you see the character too soon. Maybe you should see the top of the forest, and then her feet running, and maybe three panels in you see her. You could use these same writing just drag it out, not too far like five panels, just three. Ahh see you’ve pulled out to establish them here. Thats nice with him in the foreground and her in the background thats a nice page. I’d say maybe too many head shots sometimes it works but I’d pull back on the camera more. I’m being funny but thats what I think. Lots of people forget this because they just want to draw the character but you need to see that environment, if it was a film of just head shots you’d get a bit fed up with it. I can see that these are purely breakdowns and I can see you are thinking about camera angles. Have you had many reviews by people like this?
Us: we’ve had two so far, and we had different art in march.
MG: I don’t really know about how to get published because not even I’m sure about some of my own characters really but theres so many different ways now. I’ve worked on this comic (Bad Kids go 2 Hell) its not my creation but the guys had a film out in america, same title, in 2012 it came out, and they’re now filming the second film, this is the second graphic novel and they raised $5,500 on kickstarter, just to get it published. Thats one way of pitching your idea because this is something uniquely you have yourselves so yeah, kickstarter. Theres another one, patriot something. People pay you to put up more pages. You can do it other ways but kickstarter can short that time. So I think kickstarter or Lulu would be good. lulu will give you a quote of how much it would be to have so many pages and take it to comic shops who will take a percentage, I mean thats one of the old ways in like the 80’s. But its difficult to say the right way of getting it published. What I’ve seen his is a nice collection of character, its well put together, I’d say next is work some pages up to what you think is finished. But its great stuff.
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