Research 2 - Books

    ·        Doctor Who Magazine, comic section.

·        Brody’s Ghost by Mark Crilley (Book 1 and 2).

The imprint on Brody's hand defends him from danger when glowing, has given me the idea, but unlike Brody, the imprints on the Vi-acklings' hand is more like a birth mark.

Here are a couple of pages that Mark discarded or excluded:

Mark Crilley as an artist also helped me improve in Manga/Anime drawing skills by watching his tutorials on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley?blend=1&ob=5

·        Peppermint (Book 1 and 2).

    This gave me an idea on what type of colour to use in order to keep it suttle.

    I have noticed in thes books that not all speecch is written in the same size.

·        Gossip Girl (Manga).

    I like the idea that this Graphic Novel actually has breaks to show chapters in the story, and the narritive is shown in black boxed with white italic words.

·        How To Draw Manga Computones.

This helped me with the ideas of adding texture to my pictures.

These books also has CDs to install plugins to Photoshop which were a number of different patterns and textures which I can work with in adding textures and patterns to my pictures.

·        The Complete Book of Drawing Manga.

This had a section on how to arrange the frames in a comic in order to have a dramatic effect. Also helped with colours to use and ideas of buildings from another world.

These pictures helped me to show how didfferent backgrounds change the moods of the character or the situation they are in.

I have noticed the ones that were dark with serious story lines, often had rough edges to the drawings and the ones that were brightly coloured and were child like had clean and soft edges.

Market research

·        Nostalgia.

·        Waterstones.

    I have decided to do a graphic novel with a Sci-Fi theme and a touch of young love and fantasy, and wanted girls to be interested in it as well as boys. But I was told my story wasn’t ‘gritty’ enough and kids these days look for something they can relate to in reality. So, before I went to these shops, I was afraid that my genre would not exist or people were just not interested in it. Then after seeing what was available, I was convinced to continue my own storyline with a few changes that I was happy with.