Happy Halloween Power Kids

Author Boyann DJ

So, POWER KIDS…

The concept has appeared almost by accident, as an attempt to do something for a small group of children intended for help somehow whilst attending a certain private foreign languages center – http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=1568919879

But HOW to help..? As mascots..? Or part of illustrations/narratives in a possible manual..? Or just atractive visual to pull the attention of possible punters..?

Characters went through certain changes – NOT only demonstrated in the shown example of the work-in-progress. They’ve grown from really rough sketches into a more streamlined version of themselves as they are today, intended for more ambitious purposes, including even a comic-book adventure serial about superhero children..!

But WHY ‘Power Kids’..?

Now comes the important part… the whole purpose of the shown visual became obvious when the aforementioned foreign language centre took the powerful, heroic task of doing a charity work of the most particular kind: to offer a funny, action-packed short term English language course for very special young ones — the ones who were abandoned by their biological parents and who were put in the foster care of good-willing adults.

We were fully aware that the very title POWER KIDS is totally generic but at the same time more than appropriate for those brave girls and boys and their foster-parents taking care of them like for their own offspring. So the title for those characters AND the whole action taking place in July 2010 became exactly that - POWER KIDS -

The image appeared in its color incarnation on posters and leaflets, black and white version was printed on tee-shirts for the Course attendees that were one of the presents to all of them. They learned the basics of communication in English, some nursery rhymes, even songs… the unofficial ‘anthem’ of the group became the title song from the old Ralph Bakshi’s SPIDER-MAN animated cartoon show from the end of 60′s!

The whole project became total success, with further incarnations for the Halloween celebration at the end of October [they did it on 30th instead of 31st] and foster-care children mingling with those from non-foster care families, dancing to the Michael Jackson’s THRILLER video and having the feast with thematically designed cakes and cookies, including merengue ghosts. Even the girl-band RAZORETTES has emerged from the occasion..! Further plans remain for the Christmas/New Year’s Eve celebration with more POWER KIDS drawn in the appropriate context and situations.

Now… my approach to drawing: it’s the same for everything I draw. I do several sketches, more to warm-up and find the feel of the concept. Then I commence with doing the initial rough, usually in color pencil – blue or red is the most frequent choice. That ‘breakdown’ is then cleaned-up over the light-table on a separate sheet of paper – in colour pencil again – but the colour clean-up is tightened further with the graphite sharp mechanical 2mm pencil containing the hard 3H lead. Usually the final clean-up is inked with markers or waterproof black ink and brushes and pen nibs, but more and more frequently I skip that stage and DARKEN all the lines in PhotoShop after I scan the paper with pencil drawing so the image appears to be embellished in ink. That darkened version is then treated with added screen-tones and separate layer with the logo and eventually is also painted in PhotoShop to appear more attractive for ambitious presentations.

My illustrations and comic-book pages are done exactly the same way… although I still prefer [for now] to ink the narrative pages but soon I’ll pack my pens and brushes away and remain in the penciling only.
You can meet Boyann here http://graphitefantasy.blogspot.com

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