"tough love" - concept ../10.2
Firming up the foundations
From an early stage we knew the story behind Tough Love would involve a Bonnie and Clyde/Natural born Killers setup, based in a big city such as London turned to a collection of favela-style zones with derelict urban wasteland in between.
How would a relationship manifest in such a harsh environment, where the comforts of modern life are not there to ease the process of maintaining a loving relationship? Would couples instead be bound by a more visceral form of co-dependency?
Compositionally, we initially played with the idea of a torn dark heart - conveying the cynical and slightly twisted relationship between the two characters, and hinting at the environment's role in making them that way.
In the early stages we jumped between 2D paintings and 3D blockouts to explore our ideas, using whichever medium was quickest at getting an idea across so as not to stagger the process.
We ended up with plenty of fun ideas we would love to follow up - including a possible three-panel strip (below) telling the story of a typical day in the hood!
With this conceptual framework in place, we were ready to dive in and start working up the piece. First up : the tough environment against which our characters stand.
