from one of the first pictures I drew of Sabre to how he is now

 OK so at the top is one of the first pictures I ever drew of Sabre as a fox (originally he was a hedgehog, seeing as everyone my age was a sonic fan in school). There would like a Hewlett influence but honestly I didn't discover tank girl (beyond the crappy film) much later in life. Then I created my first comic around this character (the details of which are below) but when it came to redrawing him after 4 years for a 2nd attempt at practising story telling, I had to update his look. So looked at pictures of foxes, copied a couple and felt I had a grasp of what a fox looked like so I redrew the head with a longer nose, bigger ears and looked at markings to define the various characters. This helped but also the figure and bulk of the character I felt was wrong, so I started to slim him down and looked at creating more of a fusion style character, by really cinching in the waist he looked more agile and athletic but also younger, more an early twenties type guy.

Also I had to lose the cycling shorts,didn't sit right with the character and of course so his boots were clearer (as to not look like an all in one pair of waders) I made them tan and went with the buccaneer look, so it helped make him look like more of an adventurer

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Intial design for Iznar

 

This is to be the mysterious villain.  

Mostly mysterious because I never decided on an origin for him. The appearance though mainly comes from a love for mortal kombat and the ninja characters (subzero,  scorpion etc) , they always had a mute expression because of their face masks. In this vain I just removed the mouth completely.

a very quick sketch, well 15 minutes markers, gel pen, tipex.

this was a private commission (and my very first) for a local band called Rise Beyond.

you can contact the band on Myspace.com/risebeyonduk

the final page of issue one with the original speech bubbles made on paint.

the final page of my very first attempt at a comic.

 my old friend Huish had a computer so I made copies of the original art down to A4, then we scanned this at his before putting it onto paint, where he added the speech bubbles for me.

For what we had available to us in the backward home town of Chard, we did well.

Eventually these pages I would carry into a convention in Exeter and the ladies of Fallen Angel said they could print it so, I re wrote it (just to beef it out so the story was long enough to be worth the £2 cover price) and I sell these at shows and through my local comic store Krackers, Bath place, Taunton. Also i should point out you can email me for copies and I accept paypal.

Penultimate page of issue 1

not the best anatomy I know but still pleased with this page, everything on here came out as I imagined it. Which I don't think happens often enough.

As this was my first comic I didn't have a light box.Now, thankfully I've made the investment.

At the time I did this I would do thumbnails for the layouts of the panels thinking about timing and text and then I do an A4  rough working out my composition (actually still do these 1st two stages) then I would do a large rough on A3. I remember I was so happy with the rough I had to get it straight onto the board so I drew over every line and then rubbed the back of the page but of course it came out flipped so I did the same thing again to get the final result I wanted. A lot of work but I felt it was worth it in the end.

When inking I tried some dry brushing too in the 3rd panel for the background just to add a bit of variation and experiment.

Grandpa kick ass!

Again not greatly drawn but please remember I had never done this before so every panel was an experiment. I really liked the line work on the close up of Iznar. i made a 3" clay model of his head so used it as reference. I was really attached to Iznar as I felt he was completely new, I had tried to start creating a back story for him and even tried to create a cool armour but he just looks good as he is.
Really enjoyed trying to create fonts too here. Also this page was a little homage to the band Korn with my giant GO, gotta love some Korn

page 10 of issue one, which is available to buy for £2 (the book not the original page)

again I continued a tree through the last panels, varying the tone/ light direction as Iznar my villain teleports.

in the 3rd panel looks like ballsed up a bit and put motion lines through the window frame.

this is page 4 of issue one

I loved this page, not that its greatly drawn but the tree in the first 2 panels continuing through and the lettering as he ate, also the first time used perspective in a comic. So there's a lot of moments on here that made me believe that I could do comics and it made me want to draw more.

page 2 of issue one minus the text

sabre cover for issue one

this my first ever comic and first comic cover I'm currently working on the much anticipated (by at least my own mother) sequel