Local Hero: Urban Design

Official disclaimer time: I'm not an architect. Never been one. Fantasized about it on occasion, though. And when you see the design work by the likes of Anton Furst going into Gotham City for either the first Burton-directed Bat-movie or the comic books, or Tony Harris' work on Opal City in the second Starman series, you might begin to understand why I'd feel that way.

So, when Ian Gould sent me the initial scripts and background material for what's now Local Hero, you might understand another of the lures that got me on board as his artist of record.

I wanted to get right into it, complete with maps. I figured that between assorted graphic design and CAD packages in my collection, I could do a reasonably competent job of it. Not in Rick Sternbach or Eliot Brown's league, obviously, but still competent.

I wish I could recall a particular path of evolution in terms of how the place comes together, but there's no real path at all.

So for the time being I'm going to leave you with a sampling of artwork culled from my sketchbooks. Some of it's going to show up as parts of Shuster, others...for different places, I expect, as Local Hero continues beyond its first arc.

Enjoy.

Local Hero - A first sampling in Character Design

We've all seen them in print and online over the years: pieces of how a character evolves from first sketch to the finished pages.

Ian and I talked it over, and for today's edition, we'll cover Gator Jones, one of the keys of the first Local Hero arc. Gator's one of those guys who always seem to get the short end of the genetic stick in the genre as we know it. If the nickname wasn't a giveaway on that score, well...

Now this first drawing was the earliest design sketch I could find or remember for Gator, dating back to late 2002.

No, I'm not kidding about that. All good things take their appointed time, after all.

Anyway: I took the "Gator" nickname quite literally, of course, and this had to be remedied somewhat...

And of course, further refinements followed:

Now we move onto some rough layouts for his first appearance on-panel...


And I think I'll refrain from showing the finished page. For now, at least.


One thing that kept bugging me from the first redesign onward is the fact that we've seen guys with Gator's particular luck of the genetic draw before in other fictons, in comic books and out. I've wanted to evolve him into someone distinct from anyone else we're already familiar with. I hope I succeed in that. It'll be for you to judge, though...

So...what to do?

I'm considering using this for posting artwork from upcoming projects, given the picture file storage space available with this account.

Suggestions?

This is a backup position

My regular blog is serving me just fine. But here I am anyway...

More to follow.