---
# System prepended metadata

title: Supermodular Comic Art Direction
tags: [Art Direction]

---

---
###### tags: `Art Direction`
---

# Supermodular Comic Art Direction
May 23, 2023

<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 85.71428571428571%; height: 0;"><iframe src="https://www.loom.com/embed/7cc139b3596f43d0a7d7928bb0ee4551" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;"></iframe></div>

## Trailer
- We will start with one page.
- Every page will be a variation on this same theme.
- Consists of a few simple elements: 2 characters, a landscape, and a VR projection bot.

### Characters

#### Curious Engineer
- Male character
- Attitude: young apprentice-type like Luke Skywalker, curious, problem solver, trying to save the world
- Style: a combination of ancient Greek and futuristic solarpunk

**Body inspiration:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SkD_nOqrn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HkX_2ucSn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S1BdhuqSn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rkcw2_cS3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJoPn_9Sh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1jv2dcS3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJ8_2uqS2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJqvnd9rn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJGu3_5S2.jpg)

**Use these colors:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ryJ6hO5S2.jpg)

**Head inspiration:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Bk3ZAd9H2.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJ2W0O5S3.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HyiWA_cS2.jpg)


#### Holographic AI Assistant
- Attitude: full of knowledge that it shares with a somewhat silly and slightly dark sense of humor. It has the entire history of human civilization in its archive and it thinks the whole thing is quite absurd and wonderful.
- Style: changes form every page. Starts as Socrates, turns into a toaster, etc (see list below). As a holographic projection, it is slightly transparent, bluish tone, flickering and glitching as it moves, looks like a composite of AI generated imagery from wikipedia.
- Note: all the questions from the engineer are treated like prompts. The AI assistant responds with wikipedia-style spoken definitions, but they also trigger "image searches" that present a variety of more- and less-accurate results. The results change the shape of the assistant, change the VR background, and modulate the attractor diagram that is floating in front of the engineer.

**Visual inspiration (but not the objects/content, just the style):**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rkwzZF9B2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rk8MZFcSh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJvfWY9r3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJofZtqHn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Sy6fWK5H2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HkpMbKcSh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B1TMZt9Bh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJ6MZt5Sh.jpg)

**List of people and objects to draw in this blue hologram style:**
- [**Jean Baudrillard:**](https://www.google.com/search?q=jean+baudrillard&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiR74jKxY7_AhUrITQIHcQSDqIQ0pQJegQIDBAB&biw=1610&bih=1365&dpr=2) Baudrillard was a French philosopher and sociologist known for his theories of simulation and hyperreality. He suggested that in the contemporary, media-saturated world, reality has been replaced by simulacra, or copies without originals.
- [**Milton Friedman:**](https://www.google.com/search?q=milton+friedman&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiB_rLLxY7_AhUHFN4AHagkDFsQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=milton+friedman&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIICAAQgAQQsQMyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQ6BwgAEIoFEEM6CggAEIoFELEDEEM6BAgAEAM6CwgAEIAEELEDEIMBUJYIWPUZYMEbaABwAHgAgAGwAYgBgxCSAQQwLjE2mAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=6lFuZIHhD4eo-LYPqMmw2AU&bih=1365&biw=1610) Nobel laureate Friedman was an influential economist known for his belief in free markets and skepticism towards central banking. Although he passed away before Bitcoin was created, his ideas about the potential of computerized money were quite prescient.
- [**Socrates:**](https://www.google.com/search?q=socrates&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3y76axo7_AhUBJ30KHeZnB6YQ0pQJegQIDRAB&biw=1610&bih=1365&dpr=2) The ancient Greek philosopher.
- A single sock: Where did the other one go?
- Plunger: The unsung hero of household objects.
- Roll of toilet paper: We all know its importance after 2020.
- Stapler: Especially when it's out of staples.
- Rubber duck: A bathroom essential, unless you're not five.
- Cucumber: Just a cucumber. Nothing to see here.
- Manual Can Opener: It's like a journey back in time.
- Rusty garden spade: Just sitting there, remembering the good old gardening days.
- Doorstop: Helping doors stay open since... forever.
- An old brick: It's a brick. That's it.

### Landscape

#### Background: Quadratic Lands
- Combination of The Parthenon (ancient Greek marble ruins) and futuristic solarpunk utopian architecture.
- Oversized plants and fun colored moss growing in the cracks. Maybe a result of radiation, nutrient abundance, or CRISPR experiments.
- Colors: lots of purple, creamy marble, dark green plants, grey asphalt.

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BkWBMYqS3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJjUzK9B2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r17wzFqS3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rkQwMYqB3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hys_fY5Hh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BkGczt5rh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJ35GtcB2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJQiMYcH2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HytoGtqr3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SkjifF5r3.jpg)


#### Foreground: VR Holographic Bubble
- Like a giant bubble. Looks irredescent from the outside, shimmering with electric energy.
- Wrapped with a grid/graph, like a big floating topographic abstraction.
- On the inside, we see that it is being projected from a small floating orb that is following around the engineer, just above and behind him, roatating to always be looking forward.
- Colors: fluorescent yellow, orange, pink. All gradients.

**Outside of the bubble:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hy1t7F9S2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJ1YQY9H3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJfKXKcr3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S1WFmt5B3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJlYXY5H3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJam8Y9Hn.jpg)

**Inside the bubble:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJ5VUY5rn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/By5E8Y5H2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1oV8FcSn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1aEUF9Sn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJA48t5Hh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r11SLY5Sn.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SyoNLK5r3.jpg)


**Floating orb that projects the holodeck sphere:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJi8IK9S3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SycLUF5S2.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1oKIF5Bh.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S12FLF9r3.jpg)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJnK8KqB3.jpg)


### Context

- The engineer is walking around in the garden of ruins, having a conversation with his AI assistant.
- His personal reality mediation device is projecting an infinite scene of information in front of him, mapped over the surfaces of the objects in the physical space so he doesn't trip.
- The AI assistant uses the grid/lattice of the VR bubble to create attractor examples for the engineer.
- Every page includes:
    - a variation of the ruins background
    - a new attractor model coming out of the grid/graph/lattice
    - a new pose of the engineer character to reflect his feeling of growing excitement as he learns about attractors
    - a new form for the AI assistant as it plays around with all the strange objects of human history

**Random AI generated images, not to be taken too literally:**

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rkX2YKcrh.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S17nFK5Bh.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HkX2tt9Bn.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BkQ3FY9S2.png)


