Comics

“Lights”

Made during Ryan’s Fall 2021 (7th) semester at GMU. Created for the “One Page Comic” assignment in Professor Kardambikis’ AVT 341 Comics course.

In order to make a one page long comic with a self-contained story, Ryan first came up with the idea for splitting each panel of the comic in two, to show the unique perspectives of two characters at the same moment in time. To use this concept fully, Ryan wrote a love story between an actor and their makeup artist. After the script was finished, Ryan made a digital draft using an XP-Pen drawing tablet, within Adobe Photoshop, which was later edited following feedback from peers. With the digital draft complete, Ryan used a light table to trace the digital version using ink pens, now incorporating shading.

The story of “Lights” ends in tragedy, with the pitch-black areas of space serving as motifs of nothingness. Having such striking darkness in a story that fixates on lighting, making the jarring moment have much more impact in the end.

The final, inked version, of “Lights” was printed and bound into a collection of students’ one page comics. The anthology of comics was printed with assistance from Ryan, using a Risograph printer.

“DADa” Inked on Paper, Final Draft, Scanned, 4 Pages

 In order to make a four page long comic with a self-contained story, Ryan first came up with the idea for a parental figure, who’s child has grown up, leaving the parent to reflect on their lessons they taught, and their hypocrisies. In order to hammer home the idea of no lesson or concept being truly black or white, Ryan decided to make the main character a robot, so that the departure from simple 1s or 0s logic would be more impactful to the reader. After the script was finished, Ryan made a digital draft using an XP-Pen drawing tablet, within Adobe Photoshop, which was later edited following feedback from peers. With the digital draft complete, Ryan used a light table to trace the digital version using ink pens, then adding shading using various forms of hatching.

In “DADa,” there is a lot of visual clutter, to represent that the world is complicated and many factors must be considered when making a decision, too many to even fully recognize. The pitch-black areas of space are intended to represent figurative distance, something the robot is only now first encountering. Starting in the second page, where the robot really starts to reflect on its choices, each panel’s art represents the inner thoughts and conflicts going on in the text panel above.

The final, inked version, of “DADa” was printed and bound into a collection of students’ four page comics. The anthology of comics was printed with assistance from Ryan, using a Risograph printer.

The following images are within a slideshow format. Click or Tap on the arrows to the left/right of the images to progress.

“DADa” Digital Draft, 4 Pages

In the digital drafting stages, many edits were made to frame the story as clearly as possible. With a unique environment that needs to be understood by the audience, Ryan made multiple versions of many panels, and used feedback from peers to perfect the look and feel of the work, before the inked stage begun.

“LIVE” Digital , 32 Pages in 17 Images

For the final project, Ryan joined with a team of classmates to create an anthology of comics that they would print and distribute ourselves. The team consisted of Iskander Dambowic, Larry Nguyen, Julia Reid, Isabella Roccasecca, Yue Xu, and Ryan Bone. They decided to each make separate comics under the theme of “Secrets,” then print out 25 copies each using the classroom’s Risograph printer. Working together the whole way through, once their comics were done and printed, they designed 25 cardboard boxes to be lock the comics inside. Each box would have one copy of each comic, and would be locked with a novelty lock and key system. The key would be attached to a strip of leather glued to the top of the box, and engraved in the leather would be the number of the box, from1 through 25.

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR “LIVE” DISCUSSION BELOW

Each person on the team made their own comic to go into the box, and Ryan decided to make a comic called “LIVE”. He decided to challenge himself and his comic making skills by creating a comic that could be read forwards or backwards, and have a different meaning depending on what direction the audience reads it in. To accomplish this, Ryan designed a simplistic character lacking in any discernable features that would suggest a direction they are facing in. Using this technique, the reader would assume what the character is doing based more on context clues than clear visual actions, with the context clues in question being different depending on which page was last read. Ryan then applied this idea to the entire comic, displaying acts of heroism if the comic is read forwards, or villainous intent if the comic is read backwards. Having the multiple reading paths revealed in a twist ending after the first reading was the way “LIVE“ (or “EVIL” if you read it backwards) fit in the comic anthology’s theme of “secrets.”

Printing and distributing these comics was a fun challenge for the team, that paid off with unique presentation of the comic anthology’s theme. Ryan and the team had experience printing and distributing comics using the Risograph printer and other tools that the GMU School of Art and Design offered, thanks to their previous efforts spent of printing out other comics throughout the semester. Working together as a team, sharing and critiquing comics, and learning the printing process along the way was one of Ryan’s favorite experiences at GMU.

“Comic Anthologies: Showcase” is a video that showcases the collections of comics that the class made together, compiling anthologies of their works throughout the semester. Ryan was heavily involved in the printing and distribution processes for each of these anthologies, but as these comics are worked on together as a class, not all content shown in the video is made by Ryan himself. All of the contributors can be in seen on the showcased “Table of Contents” pages of the anthologies.

Video Games

Texture work for 3D assets can be found in the 3D Art section, and additional information on games can be found in the Game Art section.

“The Haunting of Harrison Hall”

Collection of various 2D artwork made during Ryan’s Fall 2020 (5th) semester at GMU. Created for the “Final Project in Unreal Engine” assignment in Professor Willis’ GAME 310 Game Design Studio course. Part of a group project, but all art shown here is created by Ryan Bone.

Ryan Bone designed all the 2D Art for the group project game, The Haunting of Harrison Hall in Adobe Photoshop using an XP-Pen tablet. The game follows the concept of the stress experienced as a college student being a ghost haunting the dorm room halls. Ryan designed the sketchy-art style for the game and made all the required menus, cutscene comics at the beginning and and of the game, as well as the concept art for multiple aspects of the game. Being a game with a very limited time to be developed, the characters and environments were kept simple so that translating them into 3D models would not be too difficult. With the game mostly in the dark, lit up by a small flashlight, the 2D art had to really pop to give the game a fun visual style.

Above this text is the art that is showcased in the game itself, and below is a showcase of concept art Ryan made for the game.

“Who’s The Real Monster Now?”

Made during Ryan’s Spring 2020 (4th) semester at GMU. Created for the “Serious Game” assignment in Professor Nam’s GAME 232 Online and Mobile Gaming course. Part of a group project, but the art of the characters was made by Ryan Bone.