Concepts

(To be further updated)

(ADD NEWSPAPER COMICS COLLECTION)

I want to incorporate a sort of "newspaper political comic" style to my "nation" characters - which I've more or less decided to use for all my concepts. As I'm making a political/economic statement, and the "opinion" cartoons from newspapers are heavily associated with political satire, I think this provides a stronger link between my visual style and the theme/message. I have several ideas on different scenes/different "comics";

The main idea I've been working on to kick start my concept creation is the "puppeteering" image (which I don't feel needs any further connection to the theme, I'm just using the visual as a "power/control" representation) as seen below.



This first image is a preliminary sketch I made of the "puppet" idea -- this is not an example of composition really; just the straight content and a vague idea at layout. This sketch brought me to realise a few things -- the expressions of the top characters would need to be very important -- I'm thinking aloof/ignoring "Australia" or whatever. I also think there definitely needs to be a stronger connection with trade and the image needs to be more powerful.



In the above sketch I was testing out some "angular" character eyes and styles, trying to go for a cartoon that was sort of "hard" and mean; and also testing what the "OWNED BY" "MADE IN CHINA" idea could possibly look like.



Testing style of characters (China above and U.S.A. below)







This sketch (above, very poor photo my apologies) was designed to give me more of an idea of expression of what the above countries could be feeling; from the initial sketch I'm not sure it has very much impact at all, which would mean I need stronger instant imagery but also something a little more tangible between the characters..

THE CHARACTERS: At the moment I have a number of options in how to personify each nation.
I could use iconic characters/images from each country (such as animals or historical figures); I could use political leaders (which would fit more along the lines of the political cartoons theme); I could use anthropomorphism with the flags of the countries; or I could do generic characters with "traditional" or "iconic" outfits from each country.