Where do the Infinite Wonders begin?

Thumbnail to ink to color

There hasn't been a post on this blog from me in a few weeks. It's a sad state of affairs, I know. I wanted to make one to talk about this, though. The first issue of Infinite Wonders was finally shown to the public last week. It has been gathering dust for nearly a year now. Since I did the first issue on my break in December of last year I had another semester of college work, then Timespace became my life. It's weird to think we did the book when we were 18 and just now it came out nearly 11 months later.

Infinite head turnaround

Infinite Wonders was not the first comic Tristen and I did together but it is the first we're showing to an audience of sorts. Its genesis lies in Tristen coming to me one day wanting to do an old fashioned superhero book because it was something he knew we both wanted to try. It would have a young and thin looking protagonist with more modern design sensibilities, and a seasoned superhero with the traditional cape and the trunks on the outside (I'm looking at you, Superman! You need your red trunks back on!).  It's foggy how exactly, but quickly we decided on Infinite as the name for the main character.

Infinite model turnaround

I recall months before I was playing around with this design for a spacey looking character, wearing a very organic but simplistic costume. Small boosters on his hip, mask covering the full face, big round eyes and antennae pieces on both ears. I think I was on a big Steve Rude kick (although you can never not be on a Steve Rude kick) because he bore similarities to the Moth.  I don't think I have those drawings anymore, it was one boredom-induced product found on the side of a high school math sheet.

One of the earlier Infinite designs.

I threw something similar to Tristen and he really dug it, but he wanted to see the mouth, no antennae and wanted this guy even skinnier than I was drawing him already.  The basic principles held firm and it kept refining itself as the months went on. I wanted the big eyes because they evoke the wide eyed youthfulness and inexperience, and also takes me back to my roots as a Spider-Man fan.  Color-wise, I wanted to keep him black and white since I knew the comic would likely stay black and white, you wouldn't miss much going on that way.

Mr. Wonder model sheet

Mr. Wonder's I was trying to use motifs from a lot of the big leader types. The colors of Cyclops' 90s design as well as something over the face, Superman's cape and trunks, Captain America's ears popping out was something I always enjoyed. Stuff like that. MW has a massive build, like a towering boxer.

You look like Wolverine or Batman here, why?

But one of my main goals with these designs was to go for simplicity and hopefully achieve something that feels memorable through that.  There is definitely something attractive that comes from a combination of simplistic design components.  There's that silhouette idea you hear sometimes that asks if it's something you could know with just the outline or some of those more distinctive parts of the outfits. Nolan himself I wanted to look identifiable out of costume, too.

Dat is the caption. ^

He has a strange parted flowy top hairstyle that looks like it's stuck in the 90s but also dresses pretty traditionally with the vest- again going back to my Spidey roots, Peter would wear that awesome yellow vest all the time.  The Ransacker himself was a lot of fun to draw, his design was straightforward. Supposed to be like a big schoolyard bully, wearing clothes too small. A striped shirt, short shorts, big socks, sneakers, a little bandit mask on and a beanie. Then you've got a Ransacker.

Grrr.

Working on this book and these charaacters, what it's really become for me is sort of a reactionary piece tonally compared to the majority of mainstream superhero books on the market these days. There is this fascination with making everything look super realistic and mimicking that sensation from the movies, costumes are overly detailed these days and it just lessens the fantastical escapism for me personally. If I want to see a superhero movie I'll go and see one, but I think there is something really valuable that is getting lost a lot these days with comics.

The system, man!

Big editorially driven event stories also dominate and it just keeps pushing both Tristen and I further away. It's a discussion we've had many times that directs us to the books we enjoy.  There aren't enough honest in scope mainstream books these days. They don't sell as well. My personal favorite comic at the moment is a great example of this, Superior Foes of Spider-Man (unfortunately ending soon)- which focused on villains nobody cared about before and made a humorous and character driven story out of their lives.  We wound up caring about these jerks going through these normal things along with them. I suppose what I'm relating here is that we like the comics like that which play with tropes in fun ways. They feel fresher and more earnest.

The man knows what's going on.

The way Tristen's approaching this series and the way it's mapped out, specifically its focus on character really reminds me of any Peter David book. This really smacked me in the head the other day while working on the second issue because there's this great understated wit in his words that's something I really find fun drawing.

IT'S WABBIT SEASON.

One of my main goals was to infuse my own personality into the book, and I hope you can see some of those flourishes stylistically because I'm pretty offbeat- so there's lots of quirks in there. From body language to expressions in the line work itself. Humor is the word, I wanted some slightly off-kilter humor. Cramming 10 goons in the back of a van, the licence plate, piles of security guards and goons, that one thought-process thought bubble on page 14, sound effects. I dunno, there's a lot of me in there is what I'm trying to say.

Eager front row guy!

I tried to do some experimental things with layouts, sometimes even pasting things on top of other panels and playing with the panels as part of the work itself sometimes, and with inking techniques. I used India ink, which gave some life. I've really grown to love using that stuff.

Part of an early cover rough

I really didn't like the last page. It would have bothered me to no end leaving everybody on a cliffhanger with something I didn't feel was up to par with the everything else. I ended up redrawing it months later to make it look more dramatic. Mr. Wonder himself became more streamlined as I kept tinkering with his design months after that original last page, as he just looked damn goofy before. Goodness.

Original page 21 with revised page 21

One page that was satisfying for me was page 9. It happened to be one of the most difficult to figure out because the script called for him just putting on his costume and climbing up a ladder to a rooftop. I needed to see how he gets himself over there in a more exciting way so he makes it back to his dorm taking a few silent panels to suit up. Then he jumps out the window (obscured by a tree!) into a bush to check if the coast is clear, then he dashes out and slingshots himself up onto a roof.

Page 9. 11x17 on bristol board. Pencil, pen, India ink.

The slingshot doohickey wasn't in the script (we need a name for that thing), but I thought since the guy is an engineering major he could come up with a fun gizmo like that to keep with him since he can't fly. Now he could launch himself all over the place just as quickly! I imagine it like a super duper piece of measuring tape, he keeps it inside one of those side panels on his suit.

BOOP

Another visual piece not in the script is when Nolan makes his big play against all the goons and smacks them all around-the costume inversion. I wanted there to be a visual indicator of when his power is peaking for a short while, where all of the colors on his costume would invert and there would be this bubbling all around him. Because if he could lay that kind of smackdown all the time he could have laid out all those guys as soon as he stepped in there!  I had already hinted subconsciously to myself something like this with his hand on the cover, strangely. This ended up being dubbed 'Infinite Energy' and one thing I find funny about our character is how ambiguous the powers are. He's called Infinite which implies a lot, but his powers are super mysterious and he these uncontrolled bursts where he can perform incredible feats.

Page 16. 11x17 on bristol board. Pencil, pen, India ink.

I wanted to get this post out much earlier as it's been written and ready for some time now but I couldn't scan anything until right now. It has been quite a hectic month. I am starting to feel like I am in the Twilight Zone with little sleep. I finally rummaged through 5 books of mine and this isn't even everything but that should give you the gist of it, hopefully.

If he was older.

Ah well, thanks for reading if you made it this far. It was a lot, I know. I hope you enjoyed the 1st issue. If you haven't read it yet, do it now that I've spoiled it all for you! 

The Steve Ditko split!

Finding the Time and the Space: part 2 of TBD

Last time on this blog: I only talked about the time machine... but what other masterful machinations are in store for you, the ravishing reader, this time? Well, this time I'll talk about figuring out the characters visually. That's a pretty important thing, I think.

You look quite tense.

From early on in our discussions, Daniel and I knew there needed to be something distinctive about the characters rather than just arbitrarily outfitting. Figuring out what that was for each of them would eventually reveal itself organically as we delved further into them, but starting out- you just go for what jumps to mind after hearing the basic type of character they are and what would happen in the script. For the main character James Pratt, that's how I recall the process going along.

This guy's got swerve.

All of those above sketches were some of the first of James. Before it was even set firmly in the mid 80s at that point, I believe. He didn't even have a name yet! Yeesh. He had the scar, the rolled up-down to business sleeves, a plain ol watch. The hints are there but this could still be any random fellow with his fists clenched. This's just what I got from what I was told about who this guy was immediately.

Caroline does her stuff.

Caroline was one of the other's that was thought about early on. One funny thing was that the whole reason her name was Caroline to begin with was because the song "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond was to be integrally played at the ending and provide quite a darkly tongue-in cheek note to leave us on. I'm not sure if any other thing I could say would give a better indication of how different this was.

Felix. Like it says.

Upon reading the first draft of the script, things started to feel a bit more lively for me as I started to get to know these guys better. One of the main reasons behind the 80s setting was to be able to do crazy things with the characters and have fun with it. We wanted a "heightened-80s" look going on, meaning to take distinctively 80s things that we enjoyed to help give it that placement present with the characters and also have the flexibility and room to craft our own world using those guiding principles. Achieving that would require lots of research, yeah. But immediately, I knew I wanted Caroline to have crazy frizzy hair.

1st meeting. This was cut.

I found myself digging through numerous clippings of clothing catalogues from the late 70s to mid 80s as well as looking through family photos of the period to have some concrete reference. Random movies from the period helped out a bit as well, but I prefer doing the rapid fire approach in calibrating the brain. I filled pages with my own notes and drawings of possible outfits for what extras might wear. I'm not sure if focusing on extras that early on was pertinent, but what the hey.

Reid Ackerman interview.

One idea I toyed around earlier on with was James sporting brighter colors against all the bad stuff he does, sort of a statement like he doesn't care- "Yeah, look at me!" Bright colors would permeate throughout much of the wardrobe in the film in the end, in an appropriate way that hopefully tapped that "heightened-80s" idea but didn't go completely overboard with zaniness.

Mara freak out.

But after the cast members were finally chosen is when things started to naturally fill in more concretely. It's very strange to think about, because there was a moment just before where we were wondering how things could work and how these characters would even work. Having the real life people behind them there now really brought these written ideas and whatever else tighter into reality, furthering along that molding process to more definitive levels. Around then is when it finally felt right to do the style guide for the main four cast members. That, and this stuff needed to get done next.

They are smart. Look at their labcoats.

I read through the script again to come up with statements about how these characters feel and what they would accordingly find themselves in. Among other things, I called James cocksure. I called Caroline snappy and inquisitive. Mara, yearning and flashy. Felix, habitual and stiff. Helped to move on to finding references of clothing that would reflect these things. What type of stuff would they wear when they're casually hanging around? At work? Sleeping? Accessories? Whatever? Taped a buncha crazy boards I was given full of all the stuff I found, all of it was driven by those helpful guidelines.

It's that guy.

James' ruthless actions would be reflected by his down and dirty look with the suspenders and pants pulled up along with the sleeves. The watch ring that James wears on his right ring finger was a touch I really liked for him as it was something both peculiar and imposing. I found that in an old jewelry box of my mom's, and it was something she wore in the 80s and let us use. Caroline tries to find acceptance after heavy stuff with her family growing up, dressing professionally for this fancy organization but also trying to get that security she needs with James so accordingly dresses pretty nice when around him. She also would have a special hourglass necklace as something unique to her. Earlier on, I didn't see James with glasses but it helped in making the actors look older than they actually were and the big thick-rimmed 80s glasses became too cool a thing pass up. Big funny glasses for everybody! Except Mara. Makeup instead!

James looks mad.

Mara's wild wear was inspired by Madonna. She dresses with all this shiny excess and it's because she desires to have back what she got a taste of for one perfect moment. She was probably the most fun character to work on in these stages and her bits are my personal favorites in the film. She actually didn't even become a thing until much later on, it was just the other three.

Mara looks crazy.

Felix is comparatively more rigid when looking at him against the other three characters. He dresses pretty safely and by the books. He's creative with science, not clothing! Felix even mostly keeps his sleeves rolled down as a visual hint differing him from James personality-wise (I wish he ended up only having the sleeves up for the scene where James gets him drunk, as a nudge that he's cutting loose for once and he ends up getting screwed for it- but he ended up with the sleeves up more often).

Felix looks scared.

After this is when the trips to Goodwill for boatloads of clothing started. I remember the trip where major damage was done- Mrs. Z, Mrs. Bagnall, Daniel, and Tristen were there and everybody was finding whatever they could that looked 80s. That's the thing, you find these ideas you really like but you need to actually find something close enough to it without compromising.  One fancy outfit we found had its old tag on still where we saw it was originally on sale for over $1000, that was pretty funny so we ended up using this one "expensive" costume for what James wears in the big final 15 minutes.

You can kinda see some of the style guide boards in the back.

After arranging around some of the wardrobe on the floor in different combinations for different characters, we had a base in front of us! Wahoo! From there, it was Mrs. Z putting her all into the costume department. Having her working directly with the clothes was great because she strived for ensuring authenticity and had a good system. Being there for costume tests was neat to see because it provided one of the first real indicators for me that this was becoming real finally after months of just seeing things in my head.

Speaking of seeing things in my head.

Before every shoot, the actors needed to be given the hair and makeup treatments by Mrs. Z and Kylee Jaeger which would take an hour or two every day. Jessica Mirl also did cool stuff with the scar on James' face, having to often work on it between shots because it would be at a different level of healing in the next thing being shot. Every day, Mrs. Z would have the outfits for each scene picked out and labeled.  Accessories would have to kept track of. Then the actors round out the whole picture by putting themselves into the characters, making them feel real. Lots of gears spinning around in the machine at the same time to make it function, I'd say!

Where should I put my scar?

Now, I hope that gives some sense into the way this went along. I probably won't have another venue to talk about these things, so I really need to get this stuff out of my head. Healthiest darned thing I can try. I know I'm real tired right now. It's not because of writing and thinking about all this stuff again actually, I'm just really tired. Well, that's it for now. I will probably have one more big Timespace post... probably. Probably on set design.

Ay!

Watch Timespace here.

Pondering The Infinite Wonders

One thing I like to do to whenever I have some time to spare is a fun personal project called Infinite Wonders. It's a superhero book that has rummaged around in Tristen Bagnall's head and my head for the past year or two. We enjoy working on the book whenever we can. Our plotting parties are legendary. I keep saying whenever because we always go back to it whenever we're done with other things because we enjoy adding more to this little world. It's the type of superhero comic we'd enjoy to see more of these days, so it feels liberating in many ways for the both of us. Currently working through the 2nd issue, which is a big bomber. Funny how the 1st issue was just normal sized and the 2nd one is bigger!

8x10 on bristol board. Pencil, ink, watercolors

Above's a small piece I did on the side to break things up a bit. Also helping me to start getting the feel for one character that is getting introduced soon in coming pages for me. That's one mistake I made working on the first issue. I don't think I allowed myself to get comfortable and it's something that is very apparent for me in my own critiquing. So I've been trying to remedy that hopefully by stretching and prepping more with exercises like this. Just do whatever, it's good for the head! Wanted to do something quieter but also inject some humor in there to throw that off balance.

Let's do some airobics. Yes, air.

What I meant about getting comfortable is that I'd like to be sure, especially for characters that are pretty important. Back to the beginning of the road for this one, she started out looking less streamlined. Just standard fare with the jacket on top. Lightweight boots going above the knees and gloves going up past the elbows. Something that felt light would be good since she can control gravity, breeze around and whatnot. That's partly why I think a regular ol jacket was bothering me.

Now let's just dance in the sky while we're at it.

I started trying to find ways to get the lightweight flows going on in the back by making it integrated into the costume more. Boots and gloves also became less sterile. Feels more fun that way, bringing that up-down levels motif more into play. That you can drop up or down or do whatever when she's around. One point it started becoming kinda 80s with the poofy shoulderpads. Big goggles were still fitting, I thought. Displays the wide-eyed youthfulness (both have big goggles for that reason). Also good for flying around in the air!

Almost there. Now do a long jump.

Slighter changes started to signal to myself that it was getting there, and after a few more tests I was happier with the design. Got a few more Infinite Wonders things I can show soon. I think my next post might be about Timespace, though. YOU CAN WATCH IT HERE, BY THE WAY!