I just finished another semester of Photoshop for Photography. For my Final Project, I attempted to create a retro comic book
I got the idea when I saw two action figures, The Great Khali and The Rock, hanging off a parking sign near where Katherine and I walk Sam. When the figures were still there the next two times we walked by, I grabbed them.
I knew these two figures would be the “bad guys” in my comic; now I needed some good guys. I searched the house (and garage) for other players:
Our Wooden Artist Model would play our “victim” as well as the victim’s parents. My cast would also include Jane West (“The Movable Cowgirl”), a San Francisco Sheriff’s Department action figure, a San Francisco Police Department Bobblehead and Janice West.
I had to find backgrounds for each scene. Below is an artist’s studio I found for a scene where the artist (aka “victim”) is visited by her parents.
Additionally, the Wooden Artist Models needed clothing. Here is the mother’s dress she wore when she was confronting her daughter in her daughter’s studio.
Using the clothing as a model, I tried to pose the figure in a similar way.
I placed my cast in a bunch of random poses that I hoped would be conducive to my as yet undetermined story! Once I finally had a — admittedly thin — storyline, I placed the characters in more specific poses. Some characters, such as the deputy, were amenable to that. Pretty much anything I need him to do, he was. up for.
The Bobblehead, on the other hand, didn’t have any flexibility (“I don’t do sitting. I don’t do raising my arm. I don’t do bending my legs!”).
I put together my scenes but struggled with fitting them into the panels I had designed for each page. After much reworking of the scenes (and copious use of Photoshop’s Generative Expand to make some of the backgrounds larger), I got them to fit.
I added two layers to each page — a scratchy looking layer and an old paper looking layer – to make the pages look old and worn.
Below is the finished project.
This was a lot of fun to create!