In this new chapter of Carlos Parra’s “Dark New World“. You will be introduced to many new characters. Enter “The Carnies“, a group of marauders who have survived the initial zombie infestation that hit Las Cruces, NM. “Sometimes the monsters do have smiles on their faces.” Here are my first character design sketches of  ‘The Carnies” for the upcoming zombie comic book. Carlos wanted the feel of  “A Clock Work Orange” mixed with creepy looking carnies. I was given sketch samples of their different pained faces, from there I designed their looks. At this point, the Carnies as individuals do not have names. Which I think actually makes them a bit scarier.

I’m currently workings the first few pages of the comic book. The Carnies are making a huge impact in the lives of the survivors. In the future I will post some of the sequential page thumb nails, but not too many. Don’t want to give away the  story.

Carnie in a zombie outbeak

Dark New World has always been showcases and hyped  very well in Las Cruces. The Newspapers have always giving the movie a lot of press from the casting to the premier. But last Monday I was interviewed for a well known magazine called Living In Las Cruces. This was a little different, because I able to plug the comic book. I feel like a kid talking about Christmas and the presents I’ll be getting when I talk about comics. There is a special place for comics in my heart. Anyway after the interview I started sketching a carnie and then playing in Photoshop So here is a teaser of my rendition a Carnie in DNW. When I created the Carnies, I had inspiration from my favorite media’s; Comics and Movies. So there is a little… I better wait until the comic comes out. Enjoy!!

Here are some quick sketches I’ve done of some zombies. To help keep the Dark New World zombie comic book fresh and new, I decided to sketch out a bunch of zombie faces. This way I can pick and choose which ones I want to use in the comic. I don’t just want a bunch of stereotypical bland zombies. My goal is to have over 50 different zombies already designed for the comic when I start penciling the sequential pages.

I’ve been looking at people to get ideas for the different looking zombies. I’ll be at the mall or the gas station, making sure to look at the characteristics of all the different people. So basically I’ve been people watching and re-imaging them as zombies.

I’ve tried to make them retain some of the human characteristics, but still bring the horror I feel when I think of zombies. With some rotting flesh, biting jaws and dead eyes. I’ll be posting more of my zombie sketches in the weeks to come.

- Ralph Contreras

Here are the initial character design sketches for Private Andrew Martinez, one of the new characters from the mind of Carlos Parra. The character is a veteran of the recent Iraq war. He uses the skills and training he received from the armed forces to survive this Dark New World

With these character design sketches I took into consideration Martinez’s military knowledge. Carlos sent me several photos of solders in uniform for the general look he wanted for Martinez. I used these references and modified them a bit to come up with his look while still keeping to the standard U.S. Army desert uniform. He’s in 30′s so I tried to show that in these sketches. He doesn’t look to old or to young.

My next post will have some character design sketches of the Carnies, so keep an eye out.