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I’m illustrating a folk horror comic with a giant, horrific climax! This specific story is about a talking pony and an abusive mercenary who sneak through haunted woods trying to avoid a witch.

The heart of the story is about the pony learning her value and taking a chance on a brighter future.

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Synopsis:

A miniature pony and mercenary travel through a haunted forest, trying to avoid being spotted by a cruel witch. Along the way, the mercenary hurts the pony several times. The pony tries various ways to please him including saving his life. But eventually she stands up for herself, intentionally summoning the witch for a violent surprise!
(Check end page for more details)

Medium:

It’s 14 pages. The style is black and white with full colour cover in typical 6.6 x 10.25 american style comic book size. It’s going to be digital for release and we’ll try to print it in weeks 13 &14. The focus is going to be the inking. No dialogue or colour.

Tone

I love horror! I want to build tension by using tangents and making the panels unharmonious to create dread. I think I can include the motif of darkness being safe and light being scary. For this specific story, these characters will be hiding from a witch and being seen could mean certain death. So I’m going to try and correlate light with danger.

Setting

For practical reasons, I’m setting this in a creepy forest where backgrounds are slightly more nebulous and organic with lots of foliage so I can focus on the characters without worrying too much about the background continuity.

Learning outcome:

I love comic books! I want to illustrate a lot them. This project would give me the platform to create some serious action and build up my portfolio!

Target Audience:
My audience is mature readers who love horror or dark fantasy comics. This is going to be very dynamic with a lot of heart! Books like Harrow County or Saga use surreal horror and magic elements to tell very relatable stories. I think people who like those comics will be able to appreciate this one too! And I’m excited to deliver a passionate story with a lot of heart.

Heart:
With this specific story, I’m very passionate about it because of the character’s story. Sometimes people suffer certain types of harm that break them down and forget their own worth. It’s hard to get out of those situations both mentally and physically. I just want to see someone in that type of setting win and learn to love themselves again.

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Pg 1 (right): A full page shot of a pony and man walking through a dark forest. Lonely. Sad. Establishing shot. Danger around and danger close. Dark in center.

Pg 2 (left): Close-up through creepy woods. There’s a man and a pony.

Pg 3 (right): The pony almost stumbles into one of the alert systems.

Pg 4 (left): The pony gets back up but the weight is intense. The man sneers at her but looks around afraid. The witch could be close.

Pg 5 (right): They keep walking but it’s difficult. The weight is heavy and the ground is dangerous. But they’re almost there.

Pg 6 (left): Across the bridge, the man hits the pony as she’s going up the rocks for being slow. She stumbles and takes a bad step.

Pg 7 (right): Rocks fall and they almost die. But the pony gets rid of the extra weight of the packs so she can pull him back to safety.

Pg 8 (left): He gets angry at her for dropping the bags gets ready to hit her but she sees one of the bells and turns with it in her mouth.

Pg 9 (right): The man is fearful for a second or two. But then the pony rings it as loudly as she can. They look at each other scared about what’s going to happen next. He realizes that maybe the witch isn’t real and gets ready to strike again.

Pg 10 (left): But then, his eyes start to bulge and fingers emerge from his mouth and eyes and clench and pull inwards like a sock puppet.

Pg 11 (right): We get a wide shot where a silhouette of a witch emerges and pulls her hand out of him.

Pg 12 (left): The pony is hiding in the bushes but the witch gets closer. And outstretches a hand.

Page 13 (right): She takes the pony’s bridle off and the pony looks up at her.

Pg 14 (left) : Last page is the pony and witch eating soup together. It’s still tense and the witch looks scary in the shadows but the pony is warm. And the light is coming from the center as an inverted reflection of the first page.

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Week 5: Thumbnails

Week 6: Revised thumbnails

Week 7: Roughs

Week 8: Revised Roughs

Week 9: Inked pages 1-7

Week 10: Inked pages 8-14

Week 11: Screen tones

Week 12: Touch ups and presentation

Week 13: (Stretch goals - add hues to the screen tones)

Week 14: (Stretch goals - develop colours further & print)

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I love how dynamic and charming Loisel's work is and the shapes he uses on the forest.

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I'm a big fan of Ellis's and how he draws bold compositions with 4 or 5 panels per page in a very graphic and compelling way.

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I love the use of black in Glapions inking. It's bold and elegant with a nice gradient in texture like the background tiles.

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I love the work of cartoonist Jeff Smith. He's an expert cartoonist and know where to black out the pages.

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Again this graphic approach with a elegant approach to blocking in sections and using fine details as gradients works very effectively.