Recently, inspired by the movies “Venom” and “Spider-man Into the Spider-verse“, I had the idea of creating a title sequence concept for a Movie about my favourite Marvel villain: Carnage.
I started this project by researching the character Cletus Kasady. He first appeared in “The Amazing Spider-Man” comics in 1991 and became the first and most well-known host of the Carnage symbiote.
A symbiote, for you who do not know, is a fictional extraterrestrial multicellular parasite. Klyntar is the name of Carnage’s particular symbiote. When Klyntar bonds with a host, it creates a symbiotic bond creating a single entity. A symbiote is able to slightly alter the host’s personalities along with amplifying their physical and emotional traits granting them superhuman abilities.
In Cletus’ case, the symbiote makes him extremely powerful, violent and deadly.
From my research, Cletus Kasady is a sociopath and a homicidal sadist deeply disturbed by his dark past. A serial killer that was sent to prison, where he shared a cell with Eddie Brock (Venom). When Venom returned to bond with Eddie again, it unknowingly left its offspring in the cell. The new symbiote bonded with Kasady, transforming him into Carnage. From here he escaped the prison and began a series of murders, tagging his name on walls.
Concept
Having researched the character, I had a clear idea of the title design and how to execute it. I started off by redesigning the logo to have a more edged off feel, and tested a few fonts to see which ones would fit best alongside it.
From here, I gathered visual references from the Marvel comics, animations and movies and jumped straight into sketching.
I began by sketching 4 different types of possible title screens. I ended up liking sketches 2 and 3 the most because of their simplicity.
The next step was to brainstorm the structure of the title sequence. For this, I used a brainstorming tool called MindNode.
Development
Once I was happy with how my sketches looked I drew the final frames by using the rough concepts as guides.
I used Adobe Illustrator for the type and title design, Adobe Photoshop to create the thumbnails and Adobe Bridge so I could always see all of my frames in a grid-like pattern (this was useful to make sure all frames were consistent in colour, composition etc).
The style I was aiming for was a distressed canvas look. I chose this style over a hyper-realistic full-CG 3D sculpt of Carnage so the movie would appeal to younger audiences and develop my digital drawing skills.
By having a very hyper-realistic looking cynical and violent character in the title sequence would have made it look more like a gruesome horror film, rather than a traditional Marvel homage to the comics.
After finishing all 8 frames and reviewing them multiple times, I compared the outcome to the original brief I set and made sure that the final frames matched it as best as possible making sure that they encaptured my “vision” of the style I wanted to achieve.
Final
Here are the final 8 frames:
Frame 1 introduces the main character without showing him (foreshadowing). In this case, a raging fire and possible homicide.
Frame 2 moves in closer to the raging fire. Carnage’s facial features can be seen faintly in the smoke as it flows through the air. I thought this created a unique menacing look to the shot.
Frame 3 shows the main character, Cletus Kasady, with no bond to the symbiote.
Frames 4, 5 and 6 introduce other characters involved in the story and reveal the main character in his true form.
Frame 7 reveals Carnage’s full face in detail with the staple long “monster-like” tongue wrapping around the title.
Frame 8, the final one, is a transition of a spider web to black to which pays homage to Spider-Man.
Overall, I am very happy with the final result and with the process, I used to create it.
Throughout the project, I learned some new skills.
I learned how to generate ideas in a fast and coherent way and developed my drawing skills. Most importantly, I managed to create good work whilst at the same time sticking to my set deadlines.
