Infitia – Characters (Development)

Whenever I have free time, I like to (very slowly) work on a motion book I am developing. For the moment, I am writing a detailed synopsis of the story and designing some of the characters for the story. As a student in a full-time job, it is extremely difficult for me to find time for any personal projects these days.

Quick background of the project (for those unfamiliar with it):

The website for this project can be accessed here with a brief summary of what it’s about; it is still in development whilst I find the time to create more drawings for it. Infitia means “denial” in Latin and is a black and white comic which explores the relationship between Victorian era and mental health, as well as the treatment of the working class and underclass, particularly children.

The story follows the main character’s every day life suffering from mental illness and amnesia, and his journey as he slowly regains his memories and comes to terms with his past and his crippling mental health. Many many hours of reading and research went into this project so I hope I can make this as realistic and entertaining as possible for you guys!

So far I have only designed these 3 characters, but I am hoping to do some more very soon. These still aren’t 100% concrete, though I am pretty certain Henry and Sophia will not be changing. These are the descriptions of these characters, and I tried to keep it as spoiler-free as possible!

Characters of Infitia (left to right): Viscount Henry Wakefield, James (?), and Lady Sophia Cunningham.

Characters:

Viscount George “Henry” Wakefield: A 14-year-old teenager with an incredible gift. Intelligent, creative, and trustworthy; he is the pride of the Wakefield family. After finding a homeless boy on the streets, he convinces his family to take him in as he believes this boy will be a great man one day with help and rehabilitation. Henry is incredibly interested in psychology and the cognitive workings of the brain, as such he is very acute subtle changes in body language to better understand what people are thinking.

James (?): An enigmatic homeless boy who doesn’t remember his own identity; his only identifier being his only personal possession, a hat branded with the name “James”. The Wakefield family took him in as a domestic servant. He suffers from severe clinical depression and can suffer from random bursts of fear and panic, but doesn’t understand why he has these feelings.

Lady Sophia Cunningham: A young girl who encountered James in the past and was touched by his kindness when he rescued her drowning puppy. However, she knows the boy as not James, but Charles! Which is the real name? Sophia is secretly attracted to James, but Henry really likes her.

A lot of thought went into these designs, and Charles especially was particularly difficult. Since this comic is black and white, I am restricted to grey tones. Charles shows hardly any emotion in his facial expression, so the most expressive part of his body are his eyes and hands. To make his eyes stand out more, I made his hair lighter and gave him rather dark eyes.

Forest Stags //WIP

A friend of mine made some beautiful forest stag drawings. I loved the style and designs so much that I wanted to create some myself (with permission, of course), whilst practising using Illustrator too. As this style is rather simplistic, it’s pretty easy to draw on Illustrator with the smoother on Brush tool. I think I will use Illustrator for outlines in the future…

The Devil Awakens //WIP2

Second WIP! I haven’t tried a painting style in a long time so I hope this one comes out okay. This is actually taking a really long time since I haven’t drawn or painted in a really long time but it looks okay so far. Going as slow as I am now, this one will take at least a month.

Bunny Cafe //WIP

Just another quick sketch of something I’m working on. I love working on setting and sceneries, it’s just finding time to draw backgrounds as they take so much longer than drawing characters. I wanted to do something with my new character Peter and since he was a mage, I thought having a nice picture of him doing something magical would be fitting. 

Often when I walk around my home town, I see lots and lots of cottages with lovely plants and vines growing on the outside of the building and they look so nice. It would be great if there was a cafe like that which sells tea and coffee really late into the night. I remember I was at a bar fairly late at night and they put fairy lights around the trees by the outside benches, they were incredibly pretty but unfortunately none of my friends wanted to sit on the outside so I didn’t stay long. Traditional Victorian lanterns which use candles or the early electricity ones interest me as they give off a lovely orange glow. I really hope I will have time to finish this soon since I haven’t finished a full painting for a very long time, I’ve only done sketches for the past few months.

Green Chimera //WIP

I’ve been playing a lot of Puzzle and Dragons recently. For those who don’t know, it’s a Japanese puzzle game where you collect monsters, level them up and evolve them to create the perfect team to go through challenging dungeons. It’s not as well known in Europe and I certainly don’t know anyone else who plays it, but it’s very fun and hugely addictive (sounds a little bit like Pokemon too but it’s far more complicated and in some ways, more superior). It’s a shame there’s a stamina mechanic, otherwise I’d play until my eyes fell out!

These monsters are the Leaf and Flower chimeras. They’re not particularly powerful but I thought they were really cute and I wanted to draw them. As usual, I have a majorly busy schedule so I have no idea when I can get this, or any other WIPs finished but come summer time, I’ll have more time than I need to draw.

Tomorrow I will be returning to Leeds to finish my last few weeks at university before I finished. I’m kinda thrilled that I’ve made it through the whole year, but then again I should wait until I know my results!

Some Sketches //WIP

I haven’t had much time at all to finish any drawings but I want to keep to my target of posting something at least once a week! These are some sketches I’ve made for my comic Infitia. I’ve been making this comic for a very long time now but it’s getting closer and closer to being complete!

I drew this before I returned home for Easter. I’m trying to understand what it means to be a child in the Victorian times and looking at the different environments as well. Footballs were made from blown-up pig’s bladders and since there was a huge population boom in the late 18th century, there were a lot of children roaming around the streets so it was easy to make friends. You would normally wear your cleanest clothes on Sunday since that’s when you go to church, which is why Charles has a different outfit from usual (I’ve drawn different designs for him depending on the occasion)

I drew this picture a few months ago but there are too many mistakes to fix so I redrew it as a different scene. It still has a lot of mistakes which I need to fix but I will hopefully use this as my new banner when I’ve finished painting it. This picture represents a chapter in my comic where Charles meets a girl (still deciding on her name). She’s a child prostitute which earns money for her already-rich parents but she doesn’t want this to be her life, so Charles tries to find a way to get her out of the city.

There are still a lot of things for me to do for this comic, most of it is research and developing other characters before I start storyboarding. I want to understand every aspect of Victorian culture, from the different environments to the patterns and engravings on cutlery. Of course, I ain’t gettin’ no PhD in Victorian History anytime soon but I want to make this comic as realistic and believable as possible! Even aspects which people might not expect from Victorian culture, such as the circus.

I seriously can’t wait for university to be over so I can start working on this seriously again!

Alex and Caelum //WIP

I’ve been really busy lately and haven’t had the spark or time to draw anything so here’s something I did a while back. This is my character Alex and his familiar Caelum, I made a sketch of Alex’s redesign in a previous post if you’d like to see. I think I drew this when I got my Wacom Intuos in November, I just wanted to try out my new tablet. It’s not as good my Intuos5 but as a cheap tablet, it does the job. I think I might develop this but I’ve also got a lot of other projects going on.

I just wanted to update with some art since I haven’t for a while. I have a lot of free time over the Easter so I’m going to work on my portfolio and a lot of personal projects too. I’m thinking about going for a volunteering job, I hope I get it. 

Ruins //WIP

Another painting I’m working on, this time a request for someone of their 2 characters. I love painting environments but I find that they take soooooo long to paint .3. I might extend it a little so there’s more of a focus on the surroundings rather than the characters but whatever I do, this picture will take a very long time to finish.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my comic in-between assignments and stuff. The hardest thing is choosing a style to do with since I need to choose one that I’m comfortable with and will be most suitable for that type of story. I’ll keep you all update whatever I choose!

Looming darkness //WIP

I wanted to make a new wallpaper for my mac so I decided I wanted something for my comic Infitia.

The effects of the industrial revolution meant rural families were more likely to commute to the city in search of work. Charles and his friend James used to live and work on a farm but as their parents were going out of business, they were forced to move. Cities were more crowded and families usually slept in a single room together. Houses were small and close to factories where people worked. Everyone in the family has to work, even children as young as 4-5 years old. This is a sketch of Charles at the farm before his family moved.

I’ve actually written notes on the first 5 chapters of Infitia here if you are interested in reading it. I decided to put the notes on LJ since I’m more active here so they’ll just be lost in a wall of posts on this blog! Anyway, I tried to make it dark but also not really dark. After all, Charles is a kid and children always try to find something good out of bad situations. I wanted to capture Charles’ innocence and naivety in this comic but also his more cheerful personality. He lost everything but he was always taught that the future ill be better if he worked harder to earn more money.

Anyway, I can’t wait to finish the first chapter!

Work //WIP

A localisation of Weapon Shop de Omass was officially announced the other day! I’ve been waiting for this game for a while now and I was always upset that it never made it here since it was the cutest of all of the Guild01 games. But I’m really glad it’s heading this way and so soon too!

I promised my best friend I’d make some fan art of it but I didn’t really know what to draw. Since I’m so busy doing lots of reading for university, I thought it was a good start. Even apprentice blacksmiths need to hit the books sometime! Yuhan is just so adorable though, I think I might draw him more~

I hope to turn this into a wallpaper when I have time!