Creating a Graphic Novel : Art – Food – Photography

The letter here is more a foreshadow device that will link up the story in the end. As much as Lana’s cases are trivial and fun, they still have to make sense, right? I actually talked to the penciller Sean a little about of page, I love the way the sexy montage sequence turned out!

All completed pages will be collated in the below link :
http://sigmatestudio.com/spying-with-lana/

Synopsis :

Lana wonders how she will find the mysterious brunette.

Panel 1 –

Lana – Why is she following up on all my cases? Is she trying to find a weakness?
Chief – Possibly so. Everyone is worried about the situation.

Lana is looking worried.
Chief is trying to reassure her.

Panel 2 –

Chief – We’ve received this letter just today. Not sure where the other half is but it reads . . .
” . . kill . . . Lana. Tell her to meet me at the abandoned warehouse 13 by the pier at 10pm. Lana
has to come alone.”
Lana – No one tries to kill me!

Chief is holding up a letter. It’s 1/2 torn.
Lana is very angry.

Panel 3 / 4 / 5- Montage Sequence (Sexy)

Lana is changing out of the sweater gym clothes and putting on a leather jumpsuit.

Page 6 –

Chief – Wait . . .

She jumps into a ferrari and speeds off.
Chief is background.

A very cute Christmas piece by previous featured artist Michael Bridges. Ok, altogether now . . . awwwww . . . . I love the approaching Christmas season. It’s cliche but the world just seems a little nicer over this time of the new year or maybe that’s just me?

Another painted ACEO from featured artist Dion Hamill, this time a painted ACEO of X-Men Scott Summers (Cyclops). As a character, he got more interesting after breaking up with Jean to be with Emma Frost but that’s just me. This piece is available on eBay (or click on picture below) so if you like it bid high and bid often!

Similar to previous iPhone wallpapers, I thought it’d be interesting to see how this image would look as the lock screen.

Similar to Page 2, I was envisioning a similar layout especially for a webcomic. However if this was for print, I would do a mirror image (with the long panel on the right side) so when you opened Page 2 and 3, it would look reversed. In terms of story writing, I actively wanted to do a “recap” story of the previous cases so it was a fine line from providing enough information for new readers and not to repeat previous information for those who follow the series.

All completed pages will be collated in the below link :
http://sigmatestudio.com/spying-with-lana/

Synopsis

Review of previous story Case 4. Chief explains how footage on catfight with Frida went “missing”.

Similar panel layout to Page 2.

Panel 1 – Tall panel on the left.

Lana is looking at bunch of photos.
You can make out Frida (cowgirl) from the photos.
The chief is explaining more of the situation.

Chief : Remember Frida, the pole dancing, naked catfighting, flabby thigh cowgirl, head of security
for the Archduke?
Frida : Sounds familiar.
Chief : Well the mysterious brunette got to her too . . .

Panel 2 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : It was vicious.

Frida wearing nothing but the cowboy hat throws a right punch.
MB (Mysterious Brunette) steps out of the way. MB’s hair still covering her face.

Panel 3 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : Even though Frida told her everything she knew about you . .

Frida follows up a left punch.
MB blocks the punch.

Panel 4 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : She still challenged her to naked catfighting.

MB follows up with a vicious roundhouse with knocks Frida out.
Her hat goes flying up into the air.

Panel 5 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : It may have seem closed but Frida was outclassed.

Frida collasped on the ground.
Similar to page 2, MB’s feet can be seen walking away.

It’s always a pleasure to showcase artwork by Dean Juliette. Dean has done quite a different angle for the piece and he’s put his usual high level of details to the background. This one is available for purchase on eBay so it can be a nice addition to your original artwork collection!

Witchblade :

The second page of the collaboration with Sean Harrington. The page Sean did is absolutely perfect! (Hopefully my instructions made sense.) I was thinking of the best way to construct the page, to make it easiest to understand this was a “flashback” and still ground it in the conversation between Lana and the chief in the present.

Update on Page 01 –
I forgot to mention it but it terms of writing I wanted page 1 to end with a cliffhanger. Hence the “Kill You” at the end as it opens up the story and hopefully the intrigue.

All completed pages will be collated in the below link :
http://sigmatestudio.com/spying-with-lana/

Synopsis
Review of Case 2 from previous story.
Chief explains how “Josh” was seduced by the mysterious brunette to tell everything he knew about Lana.

(There’s 2 type of panels. One is the normal panel, the other is the flashback panel. I’ll leave it with you, the best way to handle a flashback panel. Maybe change the borders or make everything in it Sepia rather than in colour?)

Panel 1 – Tall Panel across left of the page
This should stretch from top of the page all the way to the bottom.
The panels to the right are the flashback sequence.
Lana front view looking through the file (from Page 1), the chief is behind his desk.

Lana : How did you compile all this information?
Chief : It wasn’t easy Lana. A lot of good men suffered. Do you remember Josh?
Lana : Sure the idiot who was meant to watch my back and shot me?
Chief : Yes that’s him. Anyway . . .

(The next panels are to the right on Panel 1. They can overlap slightly as the flashback panel)

Panel 2 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : She caught with Josh.

Josh is having a drink from one of the mega cups.
His back is facing the reader.
A manicured hand is taping him on the shoulder.

Panel 3 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : It wasn’t pretty.

Foreground – Mysterious brunette is exposing herself to Josh.
The reader only see’s the trenchcoat from the back. (No nudity yet)
You can’t see her face.
Background – Josh eyes are wide open. The drink is being flung to one site.

Panel 4 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : Poor Josh was tortured vigorously.

Mysterious brunette is riding Josh. Her long brown hair is covering her face.
Josh is in a state of utter bewilderment.

Panel 5 – Flashback Panel

Chief voiceover : Josh couldn’t talk for days at it all.

Josh is lying on the ground with a silly smile of his face.
He’s really out of it at the moment.
In the background you see the mysterious brunette’s feet walking away.

I approached previous featured artist Sean Harrington with a pitch for his webcomic Spying with Lana. My basic storyline is our heroine, Lana is being stalked by a mysterious brunette. Over the next few weeks, there will be additional pages added as the story unfolds. Each page will include a full script breakdown so you can see the magic Sean does to move from my script (words on a page) to a completed sequential piece.

All completed pages will be collated in the below link :
http://sigmatestudio.com/spying-with-lana/

Synopsis –
Lana with punching bag.
Chief informs her of mysterious brunette.

Keeping with your style, this gives a opportunity to see Lana in all her glory – She’s in a very tight tank top (with appropriate clevage) and very tight shots which don’t leave much to the imagination.

Panel 1 – Top shot (Angle from the left)
She’s throwing a huge left punch into a punching bag.
This should give a good view of her clevage.

Panel 2 – Bottom shot (Angle from right)
A full round-house kick into the punching bag. This should
give a panty shot from that angle.

Panel 3 – Front on-shot
Background there’s a typical big tough agent (Doug) at the back.
Lana is still beating away at the bag.

Agent : Yo Lana. The boss wants to see you.

Panel 4 – Side shot

Lana is giving the punching bag a sensual embrace.
She’s whispering to the punching bag.

Lana : *sigh* Got to run. Don’t tell anyone but you’re my favourite punching bag.

Panel 5 – Long panel.
Background – Lana walking away. Back turned.
Foreground – Doug standing near the punching bag. Mike (nerdy character – NEW) is crawling out of the punching bag. Mike terribly bruised and battered.

Doug : Mike you can’t keep hiding in Lana’s punching bag.
Mike : She doesn’t know I’m here and the hug at the end is all worth it.

Panel 6 / 7 – High panel
Side by side panels.

Panel 6 –
Background – Lana’s walking in, she’s still all sweaty and looking very hot.
Foreground – Lana’s boss is looking a file. Back turned to Lana. Readers can see a picture of the hot mysterious brunette on the file, her face is blocked.

Lana : You called?

Panel 7 – Tight panel on the boss.
He’s turned around and holding the file up.
Some blurred effect and focus on the picture of the brunette.

Boss : We’ve received several reports from our field agents. We don’t know who this mysterious brunette is yet but she’s being going through some of your old cases. There is reason to believe she’s trying to . . .
KILL YOU!

Michael Bridges (who previously painted an amazing Heath Ledger Joker) has painted an amazing Green Lantern based on the costume in the upcoming DC movie with Ryan Renolds. This piece is currently on sale at eBay so be sure to make an offer on this rare opportunity.

Green Lantern Painting :

I met Eric Deschamps at a recent MtG Grand Prix. He was extremely friendly and he drew a brillant A4 sketch of Venser (Planeswalker) and a Vampire Hexmage on the back of a Venser Artist Proof (top right in the below picture). Too bad the Venser was created digitally otherwise I would be tempted to purchase the original artwork!

For more of his work :
http://www.ericdeschamps.com/

French featured artist Cedric Poulat has allowed me to showcase this Donna Troy piece for Halloween. He mentioned Donna was a good choice as her black costume is perfect for Halloween and matches well with the orange from the pumpkin. Image was done with markers and watercolours with some post production (for the fake book layout) in photoshop. Happy Halloween all!

Be sure to check out Cedric’s deviantart page for more of his incredible work!