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Raising Dragons Graphic Novel | Update 1

Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving Season!

    Earlier in the month, I made an announcement that I have the privilege of illustrating the graphic novel for Raising Dragons, written by Bryan Davis. So far the reception has been wonderful and I love reading the positive comments from the fans. Clearly people love Bryan's stories and I have an important task of not letting them down.

    I am currently in the process of working on this massive project, one that will take me well over a year to accomplish. I've prepared an update of my work after the jump!


    I have been busy drawing for the past few weeks, almost everyday. I may be an illustrator, but before this project I have not drawn this consistently since high school art class. But this is what I want to be when I grow up, so I am one step closer to my dream.

Billy Bannister
    Here is my design for Billy Bannister, the protagonist of the story. Billy is called "Dragon Breath" by the kids in school, and rightly so. His breath is a force not to be reckoned with. I won't give the story away, but there is so much more to him than meets the eye.

    If you recall from my previous RaisingDragons fan art, I have started fresh with my designs. Billy has reddish brown hair, and it's pretty messy. He wears his favorite pair of cargo pants, and a sweater.

    I was lucky and his design was approved of pretty early from my concept sketches. Just to let you know, I am working closely with Bryan Davis himself on this project. Therefore, each design is being approved by the author himself before finalized. This is good for both fans and for myself.

    What you see here may differ from Billy's depiction on the original cover, but my designs are based on the actual descriptions in the book, not the previous book covers.
Walter Foley
    Walters design is my wife's favorite. He's quite an unforgettable character in the story. He wears a baseball cap early in the book. Like Billy, I was able to get it right the first time.

    With these illustrations (and the graphic novel itself) I will be using cell-shading for the designs. This will differ from most of my other digital illustrations, which have a more 'canvas paint and airbrush' look. This is for several reasons:

    First, the time spent on shading the colors is much less time consuming.

    Second, the style is more appropriate for a comic book...AHEM sorry, I mean graphic novel. That's much better.

    Like many American artists, my style has an influence of the ever popular Japanese manga. For character designs, this means an emphasis on eyes, simple facial features, and sometimes, exaggerated expressions to convey internal emotions visually.
Bonnie Silver
    Bonnie's design was the most interesting of them all, so far. I think this is because her look is pretty iconic in the series. As far as my research goes, she's the most popular character in the entireDragons in our Midst series to be drawn by other fan artists.

    Her light blue sweatshirt was pretty important in drawing her. No hoodie, no pockets, just a simple sweatshirt. The design for her wings is still in development. I have the struggle of making them large enough for her to fly while carrying another person, yet being able to fold and fit hidden in a backpack.

    More of that to come at a later date.
    Trust me when I say, there's a lot more work to be done and it will keep me busy for a long while. I look forward when I can do this as my full time profession. I have more designs for the rest of the cast to finish, and I will post them in my next update.

    If you want to be keep up to speed on the development of the Raising Dragons Graphic Novel, please follow my blog. I also recommend becoming a fan of Bryan Davis on his Facebook Page as he also posts updates on this and other projects of his.


This post first appeared on James Art Ville | Digital Illustrator & Graphic De, please read the originial post: here

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Raising Dragons Graphic Novel | Update 1

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