EPILOGUE: Attack on Titan Zine

The next fanzine that I was involved in is Epilogue: Attack on Titan Zine, a digital fanzine based on one of the most popular anime shows called Attack on Titan; one of my favourite shows/anime. So, being a part of this zine, in particular, meant a lot to me as the fanzine was a tribute to the show/manga because the series is ending soon, and the manga finished a year ago. In the past, I've also included little references to this show within my university work and research, especially in the "Break the Anime Stigma" project I created last year for the communication module. This show is comforting to me strangely because it was a show that helped me through tough times in high school and continues to bring joy to me each time there is a new season. Despite the show's plot not being comforting in any way, shape or form.

The basic summary of the plot would be that it is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by three enormous walls that protect them from the gigantic man-eating humanoids called Titans. The story follows Eren Jeager, who vows to exterminate the Titans after a Titan brings about the destruction of his hometown and the death of his mother. It evolves into a much more captivating and confusing plot, making the show more fascinating. It starts off as a typical action anime to the way it is today (avoiding spoilers). I have been appointed both roles of being a merchandise and page artist. For this zine, in particular, I was able to create as many pieces of work as I wanted to do, but at the end of the project, I made two pages for the zine and one merchandise illustration for desktop wallpaper.

With the Attack on Titan zine, there were three different themes we had a choose from, and they were "Where We Are Now", "Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies", and "In Another Life". For this zine, I had a lot of different ideas for each theme because of how excited I was for being a part of this zine. As I previously mentioned, I decided to go forward with three ideas for the project that both myself and the mods of the project agreed upon (rather than the mods picking the best idea like the other two zines).

The first illustration would be from the theme "Everyone Lives, Nobody Dies", and it was the commander of the Survey Corps, Erwin Smith, inheriting the colossal titan instead of Armin. The illustration consists of him with titan eye lines with the new maneuver gear and uniform from season four. Some characters in the show can turn into titan shifters from the nine "superior titans", and the colossal titan is one of them. I won't spill any of the details because I already spoiled too much, but Erwin, unfortunately, doesn't survive within the story, and the main characters had to choose between him and Armin to have a "second life".

I created the other illustration for the zine based on the theme "Where We Are Now". My idea was of one of the main characters, Armin Arlert learning more about the world since he's been trapped in those walls all his life through travel and literature; it would be him in his own library with a seaside view as the character always wanted to see the sea.

Lastly, the final illustration would be the digital wallpaper, a spoof of one of the most popular characters in the show called Levi Ackerman. During the first season, there's an episode where he forces the other character to clean, and it became a "meme" online and has even become the face of some bleach products in Japan. In honour of this, I thought I would create an illustration based on this and make a brand called "Levi's Essential Cleaning" with Levi's face on different cleaning products. I thought I would go with this idea because it was just a fun piece to work with and nothing too serious, unlike the other two ideas, and it could be funny for the people interested in the zine or the show in general.

When it came to the final illustrations for these zines, I surprised myself with my capabilities. After all, I don't tend to draw male characters nearly as much as I should because I often find their anatomy hard to work with or get their facial structure right. Funny enough, looking back on all of these illustrations for these three zines, I only created artwork that included a male character, so it was perfect practice for me, and I am definitely more confident in drawing males now than before these briefs.

It was hard trying not to illustrate the anime style for the characters. I especially struggled with Levi the most (the dark-haired character) because his eyes are so stylised it was hard trying to find the right balance between staying true to the source material and making it my own through my own art style.

Another thing that I found difficult is that because these were all my illustrations for the project, I wanted them to have a consistent colour scheme. I felt that they didn't really contrast together as well as I hoped, especially the Levi wallpaper; however, upon finishing the illustrations' colouring stage, I put a colour filter/overlay to make them seem more consistent and a set of illustrations to establish they were done by the same artist.

Again, like the Stardew Valley Zine, I am very grateful that I was able to be a part of this project. Working on this zine allowed me to experiment more with compositions and challenge myself on more complex designs like the library illustration or work on my shading and tone – and of course, practising more on the male anatomy. I just hope that people like my illustrations and are interested in the zine to support not just me, but the other contributors as well.

Edit: I have just received the digital copy of the zine, and it looks amazing. Unfortunately, I can't show the zine due to copyright/privacy reasons. However, seeing everyone's work together is by far my favourite part of the zine creation, especially the contributors who wrote stories for the zine. Working on fanzines is so much fun to work with as you get the chance to work with people you might not have known otherwise whilst creating work you enjoy.