07 New and Unused
Art from the world of THE PHANTOM PLEASURE
← Prologue Episode of THE PHANTOM PLEASURE
Happy new year, everyone! I hope you’re all flying further into 2023 with clear minds and steady hearts. I’m getting the next episode ready to share, but I wanted to show you some of the ideas I had during the creation of the comic; art that doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
First off, here is some unfinished concept art from Geo-City One:
Geo-City One is connected series of subterranean megacomplexes, stretching downwards toward the center of the planet. Each one of those tiny beads of light could be an entire floor of users going about their lives…
Echo inhabits the NOMAI NETWORK, which is a mostly abandoned area of the city. You can only reach it via the overpopulated PUBLIC ACCESS ZONE.
I ended up using the foreground character design as ‘the unlucky user’ who interacts with Echo in the prologue.
This is concept art from the world of Geo-City One. Here, a downtrodden user considers changing her job class while staring at the Playbox unit in a dodgy chat club. Looking at this now, I don’t think the floors and walls look filthy enough for GC-1.
This is a title page concept of Halo cyber-stalking Echo. Here’s the raw illustration of Echo that I used for the promo screens:
I ended up making a humorous collage piece out of the above art for instagram:
I was feeling very inspired by Amano while I was sketching Echo’s LUKER MODE Synth Suit config, so I kept that influence in mind when I made a full color piece out of the sketch:
Well, that’s it for now! I’m sure I’ll have some more unused art and concepts as this project continues. Thank you to everyone who read the Prologue! I can’t wait to share the next one with you. I’m going for a more high-contrast art style, as I think it might make the characters ‘pop’ more. Though, I think I’ll keep the color filter.
I guess I might as well share a sneak peak! Here’s a work-in-progress page of Echo in a private booth, from the next episode:
