Friday Info-Process-tainment

As I can now talk about the Dark Horse Presents story called ‘Brooklyn Blood’ I’m working on with Paul Levitz, and I’m teaching a Summer Residency in sequential art at SVA this summer, I thought my Friday post could be about just a small teeny tiny bit of my process. Where the class I teach is mostly concerned with telling a story, making that story clear on the page, using panel layout to guide the eye, finding that story inside of you that haunts you and causes you a small bit of metal pain when you dig it up (yes we did that in my very first class), I thought I’d post something a little more basic here. How I draw a comic page! Or part of a page. Note that what you see below is just the bottom third of a page from the upcoming ‘Brooklyn Blood.’ We’ll skip the writing part as Paul did that.

Step A: After I read the script I draw several thumbnails with a black marker. I throw most of them away in disgust. You see here the thumbnail I settled on. Then I scan this winning thumbnail into the computer and place it in page template (the template being the correct proportions that it will be when printed).

Step B: I draw the rough pencils on a Cintiq (if you don’t know what a Cintiq is just hit the Googles). If you don’t have a Cintiq, many people use a light box to draw finished pencils on top of the blown up thumbnail which you can enlarge on a copy machine or computer.

Step C: Then I get back out of the computer by printing out a blue line version of the pencils on Bristol board. Blue line because I can now ink it in the real world with black ink, and when I scan it back into Photoshop, the blue line will not show up in the scan, only the black lines show up.

Step D: You can ink using a Cintiq also, but I still like using messy ink and brush or pen or wooden sticks. I personally like making marks on real paper. Too much work in the computer ends up putting me to sleep.

Step E: I scan the final black and white art back into the computer and on a separate layer from the black art in Photoshop, I add the colors! I also add the word balloons early on in the process because that does affect where the reader’s eye goes, but for this brief art example, I left that bit out! And there you have it. The exciting, amazing secrets of an illustrator! I just now see that I wrote “step A” in the text, and “Part A” on the art. That’s called a mistake. I make many of those! It’s part of the process. Brooklynblood proc 3

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Thrilling Thursday and MoCCA

This Saturday at MoCCA From 12 to 1 pm I will be at the Wacom table demonstrating how I use a Cintiq. As to what I’m demonstrating is up in the air a bit but I assume it will have something to do with how I draw comics and cartoons. All the details are HERE. Below is a type of illustration I will NOT demo at MoCCA because it’s an experiment that took more than just an hour to produce. Yes, another pirate. pirate face 1

And here’s a comic I’m working on that I also did completely with the Cintiq.  I’ll probably talk more about how I do this type of work.  Details for MoCCA festival are HERE.sample art AOFE

 

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Monday Noodling!

Over the holidays, when I wasn’t eating pie and cookies, I continued to learn how to use my Cintiq. The only downside I can find so far is the unlimited ability one has to blow up an image and add details for as long as you can remain awake. There are many ways it saves time, but for me that is off set by the many NEW ways it gives me to waste time.
test woman 2

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Cintiq Monday

So I bought a used Cintiq from a fellow artist over the holiday. Here is my first warm up sketch done entirely in the computer. Nothing to write home about. I’ll be forgoing bathes and food this week while I watch tons of “how to” videos on you tube….Girl test

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