Ōtea presents: Character Design activity sheet

If you are into creating comics, here's a new Ōtea activity sheet that you can download, with some tips on designing your own comic characters.

DOWNLOAD A4 POSTER (pdf file, landscape orientation)

You can also download it from our Ordering and free resources page on this blog. 

More sketches

 Here's another set of thumbnails, working out layouts for a page:

And in the final page layout, you can see some of the ideas which have made it through...

 

Sketches

Thumbnails are a way to test out ideas quickly and easily, in a small format. Here are some thumbnails for a page in my forthcoming comic, Ōtea: Rock of Ages 2:

You can see I'm trying out different layout ideas and ways to combine panels on the page.

And here are the finished inks for that page:

Now I just need to add colour, text, and design elements!

Matariki

Ngā mihi o te tau hou Māori - Greetings for the Māori New Year!

To commemorate the rising of Matariki, I've created a Matariki Comic Poster that you can download. Let the inhabitants of Otea tell you more about these stars and their significance in te ao Māori (the Māori world).

DOWNLOAD A3 POSTER (pdf file)

You can also download it from our Ordering and free resources page on this blog. Look out for more free resources on this page, coming soon!

More from the world of Ōtea

Here are some more characters I've been working on for Ōtea, drawn from the world of Māori legend. This time we have Te Hōkioi, the giant eagle, and Ahi Tipua, or Fire Spirits.

Like magic

It sometimes seems like new comics and books appear like magic, although the creators have been working for months or years on them...

As I work towards releasing Ōtea: Rock of Ages 2, I will be documenting the journey of creation to make it more visible. To start off, here are some character cards exploring my designs for the inhabitants of Ōtea. This is where I begin, and the characters take on life as I sketch and write about them.

 Now you can also follow @talesfromotea on Instagram. I'll be posting more steps on the journey this year!

Work resumed!

A quick update to post that work has resumed, and I hope to have something more concrete next year.  In the meantime, here is a quick snap of some work-in-progress.

Screenshot of colouring work-in-progress. Copyright Zak Waipara 2019.

Much of the delay is due to related, but seperate projects that are demanding a lot of my time and attention. The plan is that these other projects will also be nearing completion soon, either next year or the year after.

Some rough draft prototypes of comic/book projects. Copyright Zak Waipara 2019.