I've been working toward finishing this piece for the past couple weeks and am inching my way toward completion... leaf by leaf.
I call it "Awakenings" and it features Julie, the magical dryad character in my comic "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." I've shown a couple of previews of it before, in earlier stages of completion... but this is just how I roll... showing the same stuff over and over again until I finally get it finished!
I've taken to working on this a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. It sits on my desk and every now and then as I walk by I take a moment to just snap a couple more pieces (leaves) into place.
I'm not even sure exactly how I'm going to utilize this work yet. "Awakenings" is the title of the second issue of "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." which focuses in part on the origin of Julie. This could possibly wind up as the cover? Maybe an alternate cover? Back cover? Inside front cover? Frontispiece? I dunno. All I know is I just had to draw this image.
I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out. I'm getting a bit faster at rendering the leaves. I've begun to be able to see them as just a field of texture... rather than thinking about them as individual leaves... which overwhelms me and makes my eyes bleed!
Besides its place in a future issue of "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." this will also be my next release on NFTShowroom.com. I plan on the same format as my first release, "Sundown", where this original art edition 1 of 1 will be more expensive and I'll have a larger run of color "prints" at a more affordable level. To me, this strategy most resembles the comic convention market that I'm trying to emulate in this newly emerging digital space.
If you're interested, keep an eye out for this in the next week or so! It'll be available at https://nftshowroom.com/bryan-imhoff/gallery where you can also still pick up your copy of "Sundown" as well!
After this is done, I actually have some fun character design work to explore. While "Awakenings" is turning out how I hoped... it's not the style I want to use all the time on "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." for obvious practical reasons, as well as fitting the overall tone of the book. I'm striving for a more animated and lively feel and consequently have been studying up on my character design principles, such as "shape language" and am looking forward to sharing more about that in the future!
I have more ideas for possible uses of NFT artwork to come... with ownership granting special benefits such as "airdrops" of more art and merchandise, both digital and physical. I envision special NFT releases which serve as a badge of honor and exclusive fan club card for "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." More details to come as I figure them out on the fly!
Of course, if you have any ideas, thoughts, or feedback on the artwork or the NFT market... please leave them all in the comments. I love to hear from you!
- Bryan "the Imp" Imhoff
