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Comic Inspiration and Development
Recombinant was inspired from a critique I had of the game Biomutant by Experiment101. Biomutant is an is an open-world, post-apocalyptic Kung-Fu fable RPG, with martial art styled combat.
It has some really interesting world concepts, and aesthetics that work in its favour however, I really felt dis-engaged with the way that it was trying to tell the story.
So, rather than just moving on with my life, I decided to try and challenge myself to re-write its general premise in my own style. And what started as a concept piece, evolved into the comic Recombinant.
Writing and Art Influences
Early Character Explorations
My first step was to determine how I wanted to illustrate the world and characters. My original concept began with human like characters then pivoted to a cartoony anthropomorphic style.
For their writing, I decided I wanted to create characters that had dichotomous personalities.
e.g.
Irreverent - Caring
Strong - Vulnerable
Intelligent - A bit of an idiot
This was something that I did to sort of give the characters a bit more depth and add complexity to their interactions with the world.
Early character concept for 11525
Early design for the scout
Scout Character Development
While I did have fun with this design, I overall felt that it was way to cute for the personality of the character. So I scrapped the orange-cat? concept and decided to go for a more rabbit like look.
Final Scout
I decided to go with a full on re-design for the character, leaning into a more traditional 2D Disney style.
Weirdly having the comic in pseudo grey scale was only really something I considered after I had done the character expression sheets. The animation cell aesthetic was something I enjoyed from old cartoons and really wanted to channel that into Recombinant.
Early 11525 Design
This character went through the biggest re-design. The best way to describe the early concepts for them would be, sock puppet horse...? Honestly unsure exactly where the inspiration came from but inevitably this design was scrapped.
Final 11525 Design
For their design I ended up going for a more bear/wombat look. Leaning into a more stoic and also expressive appearance.
Hudo - 414
Hudo arguably went through the least amount of physical redesign, but the largest story/wardrobe fix.
For some reason I just couldn't justify a bi-pedal dolphin wearing cargo pants and thongs.
Final Hudo - 414 design
For Hudo's final design I decided to go for more of a cyborg concept. His suit design inspired by mega man/the robots from portal.
Clerk's character sheet
Creature Explorations
When designing the mutants for the comic, I wanted them to be quite distinct and visceral in comparison to the characters and world. One way that I did this is adding colour to the mutants in juxtaposition to the mostly monochrome world/characters. I also refined their line work differently to how I do other characters, not using an ink brush but rather just cleaning up the rough sketch.
Comic page development process.
When working on each issue of recombinant I often start with writing down my general idea on notepad, roughing out the interactions and general vibes. This is then translated into a super rough thumbnail using pencil and paper which I use as a ref when taking to digital.
Snippet of an early version of the Issue 4 script:
B does not react, K lets out a scoff and runs out infront.
K: “come on mutant, you gotta give me something”
B steps over kit.
“Fuckin hell, have you always been such a mope..”
B continues walking away
“Honestly, as a feral I thought you would be a bit more…”
B retorts back
“Do you ever shut u-“
Stepping on brick.
A lot of the issues went through multiple re-writes, adjusting tone and characterization. Issue 4 in particular went through I think about 3 re-writes before coming to what I have now.
Digital process
Rough digital sketch lines.
Inking lines.
Values and rendering of objects.
Backgrounds and detailing.
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