FINDING BISANNE MASOUD - PART ONE
Bisanne Masoud is the main character of DELUGE and she'll be a driving force in all of it's stories. Though she's tough and resilient, Bisanne is a solitary person and enjoys sailing the waves of the World Sea on her own. Friends can sometimes be few and far between for Bisanne, but that doesn't mean she's completely alone. The friends she does have would do to the ends of the World Sea for her and beyond. As Bisanne navigates the trials and hardships of the World Sea, she'll learn that love and camaraderie truly make us stronger.
Bisanne’s parents were born to Middle Eastern refugees after the Deluge drowned the Earth. They grew up on a cruise ship that circled the globe until the last of its fuel ran out. Afterwards, the cruise ship was connected to a flotilla of other ships, becoming a city that would forever drift on the Great Lane, the super-current that traverses the World Sea. Laleh and Gazsi, Bisanne’s parents, met when they were children and afterward they were never far apart. When they were old enough, Bisanne’s parents took to the World Sea in her grandfather’s sailboat, the Sirocco, and never looked back. Eventually, Bisanne was born. A few years after, Laleh disappeared, leaving her daughter and husband alone on the Sirocco. Bisanne’s father raised her on the small sailboat until the day he died six years ago. Since then, Bisanne has sailed the World Sea alone on her trusted Sirocco.
Bisanne and the story of DELUGE have been in my head for the last few years, but I knew that creating the visuals for the story were beyond my skill set and I would need to find an artist to collaborate with. Thankfully my Twitter and Instagram feeds are full of artists! Also cat gifs. But mostly artists! And that's how I found Deborah Hauber. I reached out to Deborah and, after reading the proposal and script for the first issue of DELUGE, she agreed to come on board and develop concept art and character designs for pitching the comic book. As the main character of DELUGE, finding the look of Bisanne would be our first and most important task.
These are the very first sketches that Deborah did of Bisanne. The idea here was to start broad, with a variety of ideas, and refine her look from there. I really liked the first two images, but they weren't Bisanne. This woman was more graceful than what I'd pictured in my head. But now, as I write this, I think these two images might be of Laleh, Bisanne's mother. Ultimately, Deborah and I agreed that image D was more in line with how we were both picturing Bisanne.
Keeping image D in mind, Deborah tried a few more variations, but when I saw the top image on the left, I knew we'd found Bisanne! I loved her freckles and the way she kept her hair in a long loose braid. Deborah also tried a variation that was a little on the cartoony side, but we decided to stick with a more realistic style for the art of DELUGE.
This final image is Deborah's first take on a complete rendition of Bisanne and the type of clothes she would wear while on the Sirocco. I think Deborah did a great job on these sketches! She really captured the body structure of someone who's spent their entire life working hard to stay alive. I'm incredibly excited about how the design process for DELUGE is evolving and I can't wait to see what Deborah comes up with next! You can find Deborah Hauber on Twitter under the handle @boaillustration and see her work at boaillustration.tumblr.com. Oh! Also, Deborah does a live stream on Twitch every Sunday at 7AM PST so people can watch as she works. She's in Germany so it'll be pretty early for us on the West Coast of the United States, but I guarantee it's worth it!
Well, that's it for now. Keep an eye here and on my Twitter and Instagram accounts for more updates on DELUGE. Thanks for dropping by! Talk again soon!