What's Buried Beneath
My debut graphic novel ''What's Buried Beneath'' follows the story of a young woman returning to her home town after years away, determind to fit back in to the place of her childhood. Unfortunately for her, a mysterious force that has manifested itself in the woods surrounding her house has other plans that might uproot all she thought she knew.
The front cover is the only piece not sketched out traditionally first! Every page of the novel is drawn out by hand in a dedicated sketchbook. I wanted the texture and feel only traditional mediums can produce to retain a roughness to the book that adds to the general atmosphere.
First piece of concept art done for the project, character added after the fact to make sure she matched.
The main drawing was all done first in charcoal, before being scanned in and coloured, which would inform my process for the rest of the novel.
Character turn around and page layout thumbnails
On the turn around I had inserted the colour scheme of the concept art, making sure the colour of the character matched with the general scheme I have for the concept art and novel as a whole.
All layouts for pages planned in a sketch book for experimentation, then drawn out roughly in a loose paper mock up before finalising the images.
Sample scanned pages
Drawn pages are scanned, and from there any images that need tweaking or moving.
Sample finished pages
After being edited for brightness/colour correction, pages are coloured digitally.
The final book will be approximately 60 pages long with dedicated end pages, more promotional concept art, and hopefully some alternate covers for fun!