Leeds Haunted - Dark Arches

THE DARK ARCHES 

the dark archers are under the train station. Dark tunnels maze-like paths. It's said that A mother had lost her child in the arches whilst walking through, She could hear him shouting for his mum and could be heard running up and down the tunnels in frantic. It's said that she could no longer hear the boy shouting and running. After teams spent hours searching for hours for the boy they gave up and reported the boy ran into the darkens and slipped into the tunnel that carries the river air and died. 

The arches still need construction and maintenance from time to time. It's been reported by workmen and contractors that whilst they have been working, sounds of running steps have been heard around them. steps coming from far away tunnels...that blatant that workers have been confused and gone looking for what they thought was someone lost down there. other reports have been made that echoes of a child shouting mum have been heard. there as also been reports of sightings of this boy peering around corners at workmen.  

The best from my research is the story of two workmen carrying out their duties was stopped by the echoes of a child shouting mum... they could hear footsteps all around them. when they decided to look further the sounds got louder. whilst looking they claimed to see the ghost of a boy, who looked panicked and scared stood less than 10ft away from them. they ran away...whilst running one man fell and as he was being helped up the boy appeared in one of the archways in front of him peering around the corner...stairing at him. 

This is one location that I can't go do first-hand research at. so I'm using google to help me find reference photos for this short comic strip. In my research photos are, the dark anchors, workmen attire, and victorian boy clothes.

  

Charactor concept. 

I used the photos that I collected to create these 3 outfits. one of these outfits will be chosen for the attire of my construction workers who will be the main characters of this short page comic. 

Ghost of a Boy 

I tried out two ideas for the ghost, one natural (if you will) and the other scarier like. removing the eyes and giving his facial expression more stress and weathered. I did this to the ghost character in the Middleton train ghost comic and it worked I was a little scared that this would push the character too far but it works well. If I did the character like you see below on the left, he looks more innocent, after all this ghost is tormenting the workers. I want the reader to see this character and say "oh my god that's creepy" or even better, I want this image of the character to hetch into people's heads.

On the Middleton train ghost, I used to model reference for my characters and it helped the look of the comic, Comparing that comic to the comic I did for cop, the comic that I used life models for it a more of a professional outcome.  I'll be using life models from now on within my comic book career. For this comic in the dark arches, I wanted to use two contractor characters that looked like they had been in the industry for some time, so I wanted these guys to be middle aged or knocking on 50s door...I wanted the to look a little rough and worked but I don't have the time to be waiting around for contacts to get back in touch with me and to let me photograph them. I know I could contact an acting agent and ask through them but I don't want to spend a fortune on this project at this point...so I used photo references from a book called face expressions. I took two faces that I felt I could morph into the characters that I was looking. I took the faces I could morph and put them through the development stages.

  

This one is pretty similar because the guy already had the look I was going for. This boo has helped me reference the same way as I did in the Middleton train ghost comic and brought the same level of quality to this comic, I was scared that because I didn't have a life model it would alter the look of the comics throughout the publication.


contractor 1


  

This is a pretty cool morph. This guy was too old but i saw elements of this face that i could use as a blue print to capture and create that rough hard looking guy that I was after. I made the smaller and softened the creases in his face but exaggerated the creases in his cheeks to give him a more stern look.

                                           


contractor 2

In the issue file is a quick step by step process of how i create the pages of this comic.

Page 2 -

I'm really happy with the composition of the panels on this page. panel one is set back and gives more information of the location allowing the atmosphere to be more evident in the story. panel 2.- I original had in mind having the guys visible through the legs of the ghost as it ran behind them but when it came to applying that, I felt it had been done so many times and wasn't experimental enough. It works because I had a few of my peers read these pages as a test and all of them said that the panal was creepy.



Page 3 -

panal 3 - I've had the composition of the guys repeat its self throughout the pages, as if the camera is in front of them and following them, revisiting the same composition through out shows how expression and mood of the characters change as the time passes. a technique that Hitchcock used with in his films.



Page 4 -

The last panel is my favourite, it has captured a lot of atmosphere and character in it.  I subtracted some detail from this page as I wanted this page to feel at a more fast past. but a little unsure if it looks more fast past and now looks the weaker page of the 4. I'm 10 days away from submission and have another 30 pages to complete, so, for now, I'll be leaving this as is...but will be planning a day out of the 10 to go back and visit pages. this one ill draw in the detail I left out and compare the two and see witch looks as fast.