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Sketchbook Inspiration: Sequence and Narrative

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Sketchbook Inspiration: Sequence and Narrative

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Beasts of Bramblefield: Documentary photography and video

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Beasts of Bramblefield: Documentary photography and video

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Beasts of Bramblefields: Documentary (forthcoming December)

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Bramblefields is a small nature reserve just down the road from my house between the allotments and a housing estate that was built in the late 1990s. I helped lobby for it to be set up, contacting local Green and wildlife organisations, to reserve some green space for wildlife linked to other wildlife corridors along the river. Part of the land was where we had allotments, other land had been a horse field that was too waterlogged for either allotments or housing and was developed as a wetland area. It backs onto the local junior school and includes an adventure play area and is used for various school nature activities. The area - and its magic - have been one of my key discoveries and from Lockdown. Although it is used at certain times by dog walkers, it is generally quiet. So a good place to go when my normal daily walk along the river was too crowded with joggers as well as rowers and other users who would normally have been at work or exercised in the gym.

'Bramblefield Chronicles' is an experimental photography project experimenting with creative DSLR/iPhone photography, inspired also by video capture and sketchbook work.

'Beasts of Bramblefield' is a documentary work about the natural and human 'beasts' and the ways in which they shape - or destroy their environment.

'The Tale of Pumpkin Wood' is a graphic novel illustrated by photographs processed in the Topaz Labs software to produce a 'reality-based' but magical narrative about the fate of five pumpkins that suddenly appeared in a wooded part of Bramblefield, in the context of the rapid economic development and also destruction going on around them.

Linked to future possible volunteer work with Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust and local school next to Bramblefields.

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Bramblefields is a small nature reserve just down the road from my house between the allotments and a housing estate that was built in the late 1990s. I helped lobby for it to be set up, contacting local Green and wildlife organisations, to reserve some green space for wildlife linked to other wildlife corridors along the river.

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Tale of Pumpkin Wood: First Draft annotated Narrative for Illustration Sketchbooks

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Tale of Pumpkin Wood: First Draft annotated Narrative for Illustration Sketchbooks

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Pumpkins: Collage and gouache sketchbook narrative exploration

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Pumpkins: Collage and gouache sketchbook narrative exploration

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Dave McKean : Graphic novels, his style combining photography, collage, painting and digital processing to create mixes of real and imaginary narratives.

Tomm Moore: animation and manipulation of perspective.

Storylines of Watership Down and Animals of Farthing Wood.

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Tale of Pumpkin Wood: Short Graphic Fiction

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Tale of Pumpkin Wood: Short Graphic Fiction

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Watership Down 2018 S01E01 The Journey And The Raid HDTV x264 KETTLEeztv

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The Animals Of Farthing Wood #1-The Wood In Danger

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Imaginings. An interview with Dave McKean

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Dave McKean on drawing for Arkham Asylum, new book 'Raptor', and the upward spiral of creativity

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Making of BDFIL poster 2018 by Dave McKean

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Dave McKean on illustrating The Folio edition of American Gods

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The Lakes International Comic Art Festival

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Through the comic keyhole with… Dave McKean

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How Dave McKean created The Sandman Covers & Much, Much More (Interview)

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The Making Of 'Snowlands': How To Turn An Animation Screenplay Into A Graphic Novel

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Turning a comic or graphic novel into an animated project is a fairly common pathway, but far more rare is taking a finished screenplay for an animated feature and reenvisioning it in print form.

That's exactly what filmmaker and Bloop Animation Studios founder Morr Meroz decided to do with his new project Snowlands. In this piece, Meroz walks readers through the process of why and how he turned his script into a graphic novel. Over to Meroz now:

At the end of 2019, the screenplay for was completed. After two years of writing and rewriting that script, which was meant for an animated feature film, it was finally ready to be sent out into the world.

My notion of making an animated feature film came after years as an independent animator. With three animated shorts under my belt, I thought the next logical step would be a feature film.

As if making a feature film is just like making a short, but longer. It isn't.

But the screenplay was ready, and so I started submitting it to competitions and screenplay lists services. It actually did very well, making it to the quarterfinals in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship as well as the top of the Black List for animation screenplays.

So the script was good, but the next steps proved to be a bit more abstract. They included trying to get an agent, pitching the film to studios, and securing funding. For an animated feature, the options are very limited. There aren't that many animation studios, and most develop their ideas in-house. Getting funding isn't easy either, as animated films tend to be expensive.

In other words - I was looking at years of pitch meetings and networking which ultimately may or may not end with a greenlit film. To me, as an independent creator, wasting so much time convincing other people didn't seem like an effective use of my time.

So I didn't do any of that.

I asked myself the same question I always do: what can I do?

The answer came as another question: What about a graphic novel?

I have always loved reading graphic novels, and I knew this was something I could fund myself and actually make happen. I wouldn't need to pitch this to anyone, as I could just self-publish it. I just needed to assemble a great team behind the project.

Building the Team

The Editor

I started with an editor. As I had never written a graphic novel or a comic book before, I figured I should get someone with experience in the field. I found Jim Spivey, who has worked as an editor for decades, at DC Comics among many others, and is a treasure trove of knowledge about anything comics.

He taught me how to write for the medium and helped me adapt the entire screenplay to a graphic novel format. This not only meant writing what happens in each panel but also thinking about what should appear on the right page, as opposed to the left one. Thinking about the story in a completely new visual manner.

After our new graphic novel script was finished, I looked for our art team. That team would be made up of a penciler, a colorist, and a letterer.

The Penciler

The hardest part would have been finding the right penciler, as that would determine the whole look of the book. The way I approached finding one is by testing numerous artists with the same two pages, providing them with the script for those pages as well as a few character design sheets, and seeing what they do. Each artist was paid their rate for this test, whether they got the job or not.

From among our contenders, I found Collin Fogel. What struck me the most about his work was that he drew on paper, not on a tablet. That's a bit rare in today's comic book landscape. His pencils were so gorgeous that I made the decision to keep the pencils as they were, rather than digitally inking over them. What you see in the finished book is his actual pencil work, with digital color on top. I thought this gave the book a unique visual style and made it stand out from the many graphic novels out there that sometimes look similar.

The Colorist

For the coloring I found Davi Comodo. I loved his work for the same reason. It didn't look too digital and had a painterly quality to it. I asked him to push that style for this project and laid out a couple of ground rules for the coloring.

For example, we never allowed the use of gradients. If we needed a color transition, we had to do it as we would in a painting, layering colors on top of each other to blend the color change. I also asked not to use any "special effects" such as lens flares or blurring the background to create a depth of field. The idea was basically, if it can't be done with real paint, don't do it. That worked very well with the scanned pencils, pushing the hand-made feel of the book.

The Letterer

For the lettering we brought in an industry pro, Deron Bennet, who has worked on many comic books and graphic novels. We figured out a unique style for the lettering that would fit in with the art. That meant going with a handwritten font for the main dialogue and organic imperfect balloons. We also colored the balloons with a special graphite pattern to make them look pencil-drawn to better fit in with the art. As for the effects, we made sure to make each letter a bit different so it wouldn't look computer-generated.

Printing the Finished Book

For the printing, I knew I wanted it to be a premium hardcover book so unfortunately using Amazon's KDP print-on-demand service was out of the question. I wanted a glossy title, custom inner pages, and other little things that can only be done with a real printing house.

Luckily, our editor had worked with printing houses in the past and set us up with a great Canadian printing press which produces beautiful books. That means paying a lot upfront with a minimum order of 2,000 books, but the result was more than worth it.

What about the film?!

If you're wondering what happened to the initial idea of making a feature film, here's how I see it.

Producing this book was a great experience which didn't take too long (in movie terms), and is something I can do again. The next book is already in production, and many other related products are on the way, such as a novelization of the comic and spin-offs.

I believe that if I spend the next decade developing the Snowlands universe, slowly building a fanbase for it, then the process of getting it made as a film will be much easier. And I can have fun on the way. But if it never happens, we will still have produced a great book series and built a fanbase for an original idea.
The graphic novel is available on Amazon in both ebook and hardcover. Ebook version is also available on Apple Books, Kobo, and Nook.

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The Making Of 'Snowlands': How To Turn An Animation Screenplay Into A Graphic Novel

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Turning a comic or graphic novel into an animated project is a fairly common pathway, but far more rare is taking a finished screenplay for an animated feature and reenvisioning it in print form. That's exactly what filmmaker and Bloop Animation Studios founder Morr Meroz decided to do with his new project Snowlands.

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A brand-new, full-color graphic novel series for animal fantasy fans that delivers a daring adventure and a mysterious threat that has animals-prey and predator alike-disappearing.

An orphaned white wolf cub exiled from her pack.
A lone snow leopard searching for her missing cub.
A bumbling wild cat who can't hold a tune.

In the midst of a brutal winter in the unforgiving Snowlands, famine plague the wolf pack. As the pack goes hungry, blame falls on Feba, an orphaned wolf cub whose white fur many elders believe is a bad omen. When the wolf pack's cubs vanish into thin air, the pack leaders vote to banish Feba, and perhaps worse. She escapes her fate and runs off into the icy wilderness of the Snowlands.

Lost in the treacherous mountains, Feba stumbles upon Usha, a cold and unfriendly snow leopard mother on a personal quest. While Usha wants nothing more than to continue her journey alone, she grudgingly allows Feba and a skittish young mountain cat, Batu, to follow her.

With a snowy trail full of deadly obstacles ahead, the unlikely trio sets out to find the Seeress, a magical being Usha hopes can find her missing son. Each step takes Usha, Feba, and Batu deeper into danger where they encounter other creatures-some helpful, some deceitful-and uncover a widespread peril in the mountains, the fate of the missing cubs, and what having a family truly means.

Snowlands is an epic tale of survival and friendship full of wild creatures, magical mysteries, and dangerous terrain perfect for middle-grade fans of Erin Hunter's Braveland and Warriors "Meroz's background as an animator shines through in this graphic novel's page-turning action sequences, and artist Fogel and colorist Comodo use their considerable skills to turn desolate landscapes into rich, engrossing images. The numerous adversaries that the main trio of characters encounters are truly sinister, and they're just the right amount of scary for middle-grade readers... Meroz successfully delivers intriguing characters and necessary worldbuilding for a series that promises to be as likable as its lead character. Sumptuous visuals and intriguing ideas will leave readers hungry for more time in the Snowlands." - Kirkus Reviews

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Amazon.com: Snowlands: A Blood Moon (Book 1): 9781737988700: Morr Meroz, Collin Fogel: Books

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First animatic for pumpkin animations

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Mist & Light - That Beautiful Moment : Landscape Photography

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Mist & Light - That Beautiful Moment : Landscape Photography

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Look Closer : Using a telephoto lens: Woodland Photography

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Look Closer : Using a telephoto lens: Woodland Photography

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Beasts of Bramblefield: Documentary Photography and Video

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Beasts of Bramblefield: Documentary Photography and Video

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Periurban edgelands: clash between natural world, violence and rapid profit-driven development

Cosy little worlds in the middle of violence and war breaking around

Imaginative vs real worlds

Life death and decay