Next, the bartender needed designed. Usually, it doesn't take many drawings for me to decide on a character - they form in my head as time goes on and I write them more, maybe altered by whatever story or surroundings or traits I've given them, but only a few drawings get done of varying versions of the same person and I choose a favourite. Normally, I draw one - if it fits, that's their design. If it doesn't, I'll do more (though that's not to say the initial incarnation isn't thought through and considered). 'Jim Mullan' is one of those ones that pretty much popped into my head fully realised - the subsequent drawings this time came in figuring out what he'd be like as a younger man, as this version of the strip is set in the 80s and the original idea is current. Peter Mullan was my inspiration for Jim, so I decided to look for other typical hardy Scots - James Cosmo seemed a good one, he has a similar vibe, so Jim was named after them. The kind of nice, charming bloke you do not want to piss off. They seem the kind of guys you'd find behind the bar in an old Edinburgh pub.

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The drunk, 'Al', needed to be designed first - he's the one we see the most, so he needs to fit the bill. I initially thought of him as a pretty grubby, seasoned alcoholic, seen by the previous sketch. I toyed with the idea of making him younger, but came back to the original idea (if not quite design) after seeing images of Sir Ian McKellen in 'Waiting for Godot'. Something about McKellen's voice seems to fit the way the Djinn speaks, and that juxtaposed with a shabby, blootered patron was funnier to me. The other designs looked a little more 'together' - I want 'Al' to be likeable, but also appear to have definitely lived a hard life so the fact this bout of drinking finishes him off seems plausible. He's a strange one though, as he's less a character and more a device to drive the story. He's a comically tragic character, in that sense (if I want to be pretentious).

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After the talk with Phil and Montynero, my concept for The Jean Djinni was brought up as the most original and interesting. The idea is that a Djinn (Genie) has found their bottle has ended up in an Edinburgh pub, and must now deal with this new home and its patrons. This was originally first created as part of the Memorable Characters brief from Animation last year - and while it didn't fit that brief, it was an idea I enjoyed and kept as something to work on. It would essentially be my 'Hellblazer' - a supernatural story set in Britain, the main characters investigating paranormal goings on to find out, if Genies are real, what other myths and monsters might be. This version is a kind of prequel to that story, showing the first time the Djinn has had any real interacting with people in the pub. Initially, it was quite hard to think of a scenario due to being the series idea being very much stuck in my head - however, a suggestion from Montynero of having someone drink the Djinn by accident got the ball rolling. Again, as it's an existing idea, there were already drawings and notes to work from, so once I know exactly what the story I was drawing would be (plus snippets of previous and ideas thrown in) the look was already sorted and not much more research had to be done into the characters. Some more will be done soon, just to double-check some of the lore to do with Djinn and some references as this will be set in 80s Edinburgh.

My main idea after the initial jot down was to use an old script I did in Adv. Higher English a few years ago - a 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' story in which the an being interrogated is revealed to be dead and the two 'officers' deciding his fate were God and Satan. After a very useful talk with the tutor, Phil, and our guest speaker, Montynero, it was decided that as an idea it wasn't my strongest or most original and was shelved in place of the blog's titular work. I'd mainly chosen this as it was one of the few ideas with a set beginning, middle, end and was, most importantly, short and self-contained. I also had a fairly good idea of what I'd be drawing an how, as I'd be revising an old piece of work (there's even a couple rough layouts of the room, which were drawn fairly early on). Blunt, constructive criticism is essential early on though, and it definitely opened the way for a much more interesting project.

This batch consists of the preliminary work I've done for far for the second brief - a sample Future Shock. It's a post-apocalyptic western, which is totally my thing (theme wise, at least) so getting into the feel of it wasn't difficult. Panel layouts were hard, a lot was asked of in some pages, and proper sketches of what will be in these panels still need to be done. Had a fairly good idea of what the characters would look like - the descriptions were vague, so I'm free to use whatever came to mind while reading it. I'm a big fan of westerns and games such as Fallout, so I didn't feel much of a need to do an awful lot of research. There will be some soon though, along with a few extra sketches - just in case.

This blog shows my initial ideas, doodles and concepts for the Comic Book module at DJCAD - and the idea I finally settled on, The Jean Djinni. The comics module is perfect for me, as I got into animation as a way to strengthen my portfolio and drawing ability to get to my main goal as a comics creator (one I've had for some time now). This first page in my sketchbook was a quick jot down of previous comic book concepts I've had kicking around for a while that could be adapted for the 2-8 page brief we were given. The majority of these are ideas for one-shots or series, and initially none seemed to work in such a small window.