Spineless Comic

Spineless cover by Jess Bradley

A belated post on a project I worked on last year - a 4 page comic for the Newcastle Science Comic.

My pages formed a chapter within a selection of comics by different artists illustrating fun and interesting facts about invertebrate creatures. The final comic was available for visitors of the Great North Museum: Hancock to pick up for free during the 'Spineless' exhibition. 

The chapter I was given was Seashore: Lobsters and Mussels. I had to specifically design my comic around lobster tagging/tracking and mussel byssus, and also had to collaborate with a scientist and curator of the exhibition to ensure all facts and figures were accurate.

Planning and Roughs:

My initial roughs always start out a bit crazy as
I work out the script and layouts for each page.

Refining each page layout before final inking

Ink outlines for the first page.

Final Pages:

I scanned in the inked pages and added the
colours, textures and fonts on Photoshop

The Exhibition:

The exhibition was put together really well, with lots of areas for children to play, interact and learn fun facts.
There were even some live exhibits of beetles, spiders and other creepy crawlies which I thought was a really cool addition. 

The finished comics ready for takin' !

Spineless workshops at the Great North Museum: Hancock:

During the half term holidays I was invited to assist as a guest artist in some workshops themed on the Spineless comic and exhibition.
There were some great comic and drawing activities that children (and parents!) could take part in, and they were really popular events.
I walked round helping children with their ideas and drawing and getting them started on a giant comic on the wall (which unsurprisingly was very popular with the little ones!)
I really enjoyed the experience and would love to help out at more workshops in the future.
It made me realise how much I've missed working with children since being a Nursery Assistant at University!

Loved seeing my comic as bunting!

Images from: http://newcastlesciencecomic.blogspot.co.uk

The comic got a review on the Forbidden Planet blog too which was awesome: