Zeros 2 Heroes - The People's Publisher

Hey everybody!

After the "pilot episode" of My life as the Hero High artist, here I come again.

So, Crackwalker's question on my last post was "I have wondered about the Vision Document - how much do you refer to it" 

So, considering that Crackwalker is the Hero High writer, sounds like I didn't exactly followed his details on the Vision Document ;)

For those a little lost, the Vision Document is a file where the writer details a lot of things about his/her script, like how each character should look, exemplified with an actor/celebrity/other media character, pictures of how the places should look, other comics/movies/tv series, etc, that can be related in some way with the script, even a bunch of songs that may work as the "soundtrack" for the comic book.  So, as you can see, you have enough detailed information to not misunderstand the writer's idea. 

So. How much an artist should/can refer to the Vision Document? In my case, I used the vision document as a base to start developing the general look of the book. Luckily, I've already seen most of the things named on the Hero HIgh V.D. before. But if I don't know any of the things named there, I'll try to investigate as much as I can. 

Probably, the hardest part it's (at least for me) developing the character design. I consider myself a disaster at drawing "real life characters", portraits, etc. But as the Vision Document uses as a reference for a character a "real life" person, I have to try to make him/her look similar on a way or another.  Not always works :P

Farley Flynn, the main character from Hero High, according to the Vision Document, should be based on River Phoenix. If you check the pin-up, you'll obviously realize that he don't look anything like River Phoenix...

That's because I'm an horrible penciler? Probably... but also because for my process on the character design. I start doing a bunch of "realistic" sketches of the character (in this case, River Phoenix) but then I start to "transform" him on a comic character. I have to draw Farley a lot of times olong the book, and if I don't make him become a character that you can recognize on every panel, it would be a mess. So I think the character must have a feel of this referenced celebrity, but also have his/her own look and personality.

I remember reading a Daredevil's book some time ago, and the artist, seems he worked with reference for each character on the same way we do here. But some funny things happened, like, Peter Parker has the Leonardo di Caprio face. Also, there was Angelina Jolie, Kate Moss, Lauryn Hill, and... well, you got the idea. The artwork was great, beautiful, but the characters faces where portraits of the references, and personally, I'm not expecting that when you will be reading Hero High, you'll say, "Hey!, here's Katie Holmes!"

So, the answer to Dylan's question would be: I follow the Vision Document a lot... at the begining.  Then, once I made the characters "mine", I really forget that Farley should look like River Phoenix or that Peggy should look like Katie Holmes. They are Farley and Peggy.

And last; the Vision Document also names, as reference, other comic books and artists. This is also useful to get an idea of the look, but at the same time, an artist have a personal way of doing things (well, there are a lot of people that works adapting themselves on other people's stiles, but it's not my way of working, really). So I try to consider the examples like "ok, that's the feeling I should give to my stile on this project".  I can't work like Darwyn Cooke even if I wanted to (not because I don't like it, in fact, I like his artwork a lot), it's just simply because my stile is different. But I can add the idea, the feeling that the writer is looking for, on my artwork.

So, that would be all for today. Any questions? any other thing you would like to know about Hero High or something else? Just write! 

By the way, any of you have checked the interview to Crackwalker by our fellow editor Alex? Check it right now!

Cheers!