At the beginning, Sister Catharine was quite hard to draw.  I hadn’t quite mastered her “look” yet, and the result was that her appearance was a bit nebulous and changed nearly every time I drew her.

First ever Sister Catharine concept art design:

Sister Catharine, in her early comic appearances:

Over the last couple years, her design has really gotten refined.  I gave her face more definition, intending to give her a very subtle, cat-like look.

Sister Catharine now:

The first ever drawing of Gabrielle.  This was before I had even decided to make Sister Claire in a more Powerpuffy, Junko Mizuno-y style.

I remember her old character concept and design was a more “unbearably perky, know-it-all librarian” as opposed to “sexy businesswoman.”  She had glasses, and I had also toyed with the idea of her being able to turn into a cockatoo.  Why? Because it seemed like a good idea, I guess.

It was only later when I was experimenting with more bold color schemes that I tried making her blue.  I was surprised to find that I really loved that color on her, so blue she stayed.  After that, her whole personality and water associations started to fall into place, resulting in her current incarnation!

These are some of the many different characters and reference photos I gathered, which I used for inspiration:

Slowly but surel I’ve started working through my old pages and updating the artwork, at the request of a company I’m hoping to publish the comic with.

Here are two samples: (click to enlarge)

P.S. These are all viewable on my DeviantArt account.
As you might guess, it’s slow and painful work, but the result is interesting. It’s refreshing to see how much I’ve improved at this style after two years!  It’s also nice to revisit and touch things up/fine tune details and possibly add some foreshadowing to events I hadn’t foreseen at the time of drawing the pages. XD

In addition to Sister Claire stuff, I’ve also been getting back into the swing of concept art for “Nightingale,” with a couple more concept arts.  I’m trying to fine-tune this style, and really get a grasp of how to do the lineart and coloring.

Sister Claire in ATLA by `Yamino on deviantART

For the majority of the time, I was meeting up with editors and comic publishers to introduce Sister Claire (and in some cases, concept art for Nightingale) in hopes of getting published.  As you know, I’ve been working on Sister Claire for over a year now, so I had a lot more material to show for that.  I brought 4 preview books and t-shirts, which were all given away to the most interested publishers.   I met with a lot of big name publishers, most of whom were not interested.  Publishers usually have a very specific idea in mind for what they are looking for, so this wasn’t a surprise to me.  Nonetheless, I waited patiently and showed my work to every editor who would see me.

As a result, even if not everyone showed interest in publishing me, I made some unexpected contacts with some really cool people, including C.G. Marra from Passenger Press, an Italian publisher who is making an all-girl anthology soon.  I’ll be in contact with him about doing a 6-8 page comic in Sister Claire style.  =)

Sadly I didn't have any time to go to any of their meetups, but I'm sure it was really swingin'.

I met Tim Fish, Paige Braddock, and Abby Denson at the GLBT booth.  They were all really sweet and interesting to talk to, particularly on the subject of the first gay superhero in Marvel finally being allowed to have a boyfriend.  It was also nice to talk to them after 2 days of speaking on French and Italian, it was nice to have a moment in English again… XD

Thank you so much Mr. Grant! T_T You're a cool dude.

As for other artists I met, perhaps the most famous was Alan Grant, the writer of Tank Girl.  I chatted with him for almost half an hour while I waited for my chance to meet some editors from Ankama.  He was the one who stood up and waved at me when someone was finally free to speak to me!

Speaking of which, there’s pretty much NOTHING published by Ankama that I don’t love.  (But my faves would be Maliki, Muthafukas, and of course now the french version of Tank Girl!)  I think my Sister Claire style really matches their theme.  I hope I’ll have more good news to bring soon regarding this soon. ;D

The waiting area to speak to Soleil editors looked like a fashion runway.

While waiting 30 minutes in line to meet the editors of Soleil (who looked at my stuff for about 3 seconds before brushing me off… lol, c’est la vie.) I met a very talented artist from Argentina named Alejandro Marmontel. He does some really nice digital painted coloring for a collaboration comic.  This dude is totally gonna be famous someday. O_O

I also met Rosalys, a more manga-style artist who does some really gorgeous artwork.  She’s also really cute herself, but I was too shy to tell her that in person. XD If you know the MMORPG FlyFF, you might be interested to know that she made the comic that started it all! She also has a video interview here! (Sorry… it’s in French)

There was a public reading room where people could vote on their favorite comics and listen to live interviews of the nominated artists/writers.

In the above picture room, there was also a public “drawing board” where visitors could leave messages and drawings.  Of course I couldn’t pass up the pimping opportunity:

Claire left her heart in Angouleme...

Similarly, at a Wacom tablet exhibition I took it upon myself to do a little demonstration, leaving behind an unfinished sketch of Nightingale:

On the subject of Nightingale, I had a particularly interesting meeting with the heads of Tekneo, who have developed an application to bring comics to the iPhone and other portables. I was very excited to sample their technology, because they are incorporating slight animation, but more importantly, sound into the modified comics.  This got me wondering… what if Nightingale was published on this platform, with audio supplements to make it accessible to blind people?  It’s been long plaguing me that my comic, which focuses on a blind superheroine, is ironically inaccessible to the very people it’s meant to educate the public about.  If I could team up with them to make the first blind-accessible “comic”, that would be pretty revolutionary!  They seemed equally hooked by the idea, so we’ll be keeping in touch about this.  The first release of Nightingale may end up not in print, but an interactive, portable platform! <8D

I also met some strange characters wandering about the city- some were more recognizable than others.  I even picked a fight with the biggest one!

Lady Gaga’s super-tall French cousins from Yamino on Vimeo.

Also, possibly the biggest surprise wasn’t even at the comic festival itself.  My host had a disko in her basement.  No, really… with a full bar and everything.  I made this little video while I was zoning out in between two conversing people.

Basement Disko from Yamino on Vimeo.

]]> http://www.sisterclaire.com/blog/angouleme-2010/feed/ 11 http://www.sisterclaire.com/blog/gunbaby/ http://www.sisterclaire.com/blog/gunbaby/#comments Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:22:03 +0000 Yamino http://www.sisterclaire.com/?p=2229


Gunbaby by ~Yamino on deviantART

This is a submission for the GUNBABY: The Baby With Guns Community comic. Details about the comic can be found here:

http://www.deviantart.com/users/outgoing?http://forum.webcomicscommunity.com/index.php/board,25.0.html

The comic was spawned as a collaborative, community comic on the same forum. We recently started up a group on DA:

You should totally join and draw Gunbaby stuff, all the cool kids are doing it!

I sketched this up for Trav’s birthday, which is today, the 23rd of January! He’s the guitarist and real leader of the band. His character is Aptiva, the dude with the mexican wrestling mask and the cape. XD

I (and Smoker!) are just figureheads, really. The token girl/s, if you will. If it wasn’t for Trav, I wouldn’t even be in the band! Why don’t you pop by and say HAPPY BERFDAY? ;D

Smoker’s wearing a different outfit than the last several times I drew her. This one is very Lady Gaga-inspired. (I adore Gaga, if you haven’t guessed! <3)

For more info Freen in Green and music samples/character profiles, check out our blog! http://freeningreen.wordpress.com/

You’ll recognize "Smoker" as the character in my icon, as well as a sketch I posted earlier. Those of you who follow my blog know that I like to sing! Those of you who REALLY pay attention also know that I joined a band, Freen in Green!

We decided that rather that just be ourselves, we want to go the Gorillaz route and do an animated/comic band! Smoker is the vocalist, (I’ll be providing her vocals), Aptiva is the guitarist, Adam is the bassist, Trekker Mint is the drummer, and Mystery is the occasional keyboardist.

They characters all have really ridiculous detailed backstories (except for Mystery, nobody knows who the hell she is or even if she has a real name.)

Find out more here:
http://freeningreen.wordpress.com/