Mara #4 is out today! Pick it up in your local comic shop or online at comiXology!
Written by Brian Wood, colors by Jordie Bellaire! Also featuring pinups by Yasmin Liang and Peter Krause!
Can you give any insight into your process of creating a characters' features? Mara and her brother I think are just really outstanding examples of well thought out and meticulous character design (which is clearly evident in all your drawings, but tackling 'family resemblance' like that just blew my mind)
(Two Princes: Mark and Mara)
Thanks Clay! Character consistency is something I struggled with for years and am still refining. On the one hand, I didn’t want to come up with a standard “face template” and have everyone in my art look identical, minus hair and coloring choices. On the other hand, how do you keep one face looking like itself across all those angles? It’s headache inducing!
I find that adjectives really help. Keeping descriptive words in your mind’s eye can help meld a drawing’s look. Mara and her brother Mark both have large, dark, almond shaped eyes, small pert noses, equally-sized plush top and bottom lips, and square-leaning-to-oval faces.
Those are a lot of specific descriptors because they’re important characters. For supporting cast, I may just resort to “shifty and blonde,” “Daniel Craig,” “equine and 40ish,” etc., and just try to draw true to the spirit of what those phrases evoke for me.
Words, words, words! A drawing is a sentence you can see.
Make us proud.
Another beautiful photoset from MARA #1! Getting excited for #3 to come out this Wednesday, hope you guys like it! :)
My version of @mingdoyle and Brian Wood’s “Mara”—which I highly recommend. Photoshop, Cintiq.
I’m overwhelmed!
Mara #2 is in stores and on ComiXology today!
As superstar athlete Mara Prince’s superpower manifestation is caught on live TV, her life rapidly starts to spiral out of control. The media descends like vultures. Her handlers go into spin mode. The footage is seen around the world, and this young woman, who only hours ago was the darling of pop culture, is now being slammed and ridiculed for being a fraud and a liar. But the more she tries to fight back, the only thing she’s doing is escalating the problem. A sci-fi take on real world superheroes by the powerhouse team of BRIAN WOOD, MING DOYLE and JORDIE BELLAIRE!
Here’s one of my favorite panels from the issue along with the cover. You can preview or buy Mara #2 right over here.
“Brian left most of the stylistic details up to me, but early on he threw a lot of fun keywords my way, like “supercities,” “blimps,” and “Starship Troopers,” which I was instantly all over. I haven’t had the opportunity to draw anything on the scale of this story before, so whenever I get to a panel in the script that says something like “futurecity gridlock,” I just have so much fun.”
Ming Doyle—discussing her new miniseries with Brian Wood, Mara—in this week’s Talking Comics with me.
