Episode 0 Page 5

This page stayed pretty true to the storyboard, but I think the idea for this page actually came pretty late in the planning stages of the story. For the longest time I didn't know exactly how I would progress past page 4, I knew what I wanted to get out of the chapter and how it would wrap up, but I didn't really know what was going to go in between page 9 and 4.
Of course, these pages had to illustrate Mirai's predicament in the forest and bring the zombie, the shark, and the bear together to show how these creatures change Mirai. The tricky part was trying to convey alot of action and suspense in three pages.
This event is scheduled to be more fleshed out a little later in the story, this version of the story was meant to meant to create a lot of questions and uncertainty as to what exactly happened leading up to Mirai become the Zombie Shark Bear.

EP 0 PAGE 4

So, this page was pretty tricky and went through more than one draft. The reason for this was because of the amount of information that needed to be fit into just this one page. I had to convey that Mirai was in the situation that she was in because of information she got from her two underlings even if we're not exactly sure what they're saying (and it's implied there may be some sinister intentions). From here we needed to show that Mirai took it upon herself to investigate the information she receieved alone, and that she has gone off into an unknown wilderness.

The last panel illustrates that this was a bad idea, and provides anticipation for the pages to come.

I'm really happy with the way the page turned out and it's obvious it stays pretty close to the final storyboard, which was nice. It took a lot of polish, but I think it was well worth it.

Episode 0 Page 3

Page 3

Here you can see the process behind how a page of ZSB is completed. I normally draw a rough sketch of the layout and then in Photoshop refine the design of the page and then do the final drawing. One of the big things about ZSB is that I've been experimenting with doing panels or scenes in different styles using the pacing and character design to tie them all together.

For example Mirai's grandfather, King Cadillac, is supposed to exude an aura of majesty and classical romanticism, and so his panels are made to have a more painterly quality to them. So far, this take on the art in the story has been very successful and eduacation for me, and has pushed me into new territory as an artist.

Episode 0 Page 2

Page 2.
With this page I wanted to get something that resembled my friend, Cheeks' art style. His style has a really loose, active feel to it and he has really subdued, deep color palettes.

For the most part I think that came out well on this page. I had also previously spent alot of time going back and forth between stylistic vs. realistic looking zombies for this story. Right now, I'm going with the stylisitc zombies because I think they can be just as creepy as something that is photo correct, it's just all about the set up of the image. Hopefully, I've succeeded on that end as well.

In the end, I was really happy that I was able to get the end result to resemble the storyboard so closely. You can the storyboard below.

Episode 0 Page 1

Page 1

So, I've been kicking the ZSB idea around now for a couple of years. Jed Desuka, the editor/ webmaster of GW and me came up with idea one day while I was visiting him, which was inturn based off of a completely random topic of conversation developed by two of my best friends while they were at work. The idea of "Zombie Shark Bear" was so cool I knew I had to run with it somehow.

So, while we had the concept and the barebones version of the story down, how the story would actually be told was something that was up for debate; as was the art style of the comic. I knew I wanted something different from Gremlin World, but what I knew I wanted to get out of it was beyond my grasp at the time. It wasn't until I saw a friend from Deviant Art's digital inking tutorial that I had the epiphany that brought it all together.

Below is one of the early drafts of the first page of ZSB, while it does have some stylistic similarities to the final version, I don't think it has the cohesion of the final piece, which I'm quite happy with and think it has a nice, dreamy kind of quality to it.

Episode 0 Cover

Here is the cover of Zombie Shark Bear Episode 0.
This page was really simple to make, actually, it's pretty much just the old "Coming Soon" image on a black background. Since I wanted the artwork in the chapter to speak for itself, I decided that a simpler cover page would work well. I also like the way Mirai's eyes contrast with the rest of the image.

The original teaser illustration I took Mirai's picture from is below.

Pending Updates

Okay, so I have a new plan!

This upcoming week, I will be posting ZOMBIE SHARK BEAR Episode 0 and Episode X here on the Production Blog and will giving some commentary on each page with each update! I'll also be showing the storyboards for some of the pages and may even include alternate versions of scenes if I still have those available! Please make sure to check out these updates!