2024
Plasticine Cowboy is a 24 page comic created using a blend of 3D sculpted artwork, hand-drawing, photography and risograph printing.
It was created during my time as artist-in-residence at Out of the Blueprint in summer 2024.
The comic was accompanied by an exhibition at Out of the Blue Drill Hall from August to October 2024. The exhibition showcased the original plasticine models that were sculpted to create the comic, alongside some select risoprinted pages and development sketches.
Risoprinted Comic Pages (Above)
Digital Comic Pages (Below)
The idea for the story came to me when reading the safety instruction leaflet that comes with a pack of plasticine.
The story follows a cowboy wandering into town after going on a rescue mission to save a woman’s son and ending in a shootout. The narration in the captions of the comic describe the properties and safety features of plasticine whilst also relating to specific events happening in the narrative. For example, “suitable for children” as he goes to rescue the child, “even when consumed” as the child bites his hand as he tries to uncuff him.
Initially just wanting to experiment with a single image to test the process, I chose an image of a cowboy as a reference. I sketched the image in pencil before pressing and molding plasticine on top, creating a slightly 3D image. Each section of the image was done in a different colour of plasticine so that whenphotographed and turned black and white it was easier to adjust each section separately so that any colour could then be applied digitally. Because the comic was to be riso-printed, it was important that each colour was separable and on different layers.
