Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Process 2: Pencils

Sorry it's been taking me so long to get to updates, I've been busy thumbnailing all of Chapter Two, which I can NOT wait to start penciling. No, I'm not done with Chapter One, but I'm pretty close to being done with the pencils and I need to get moving. Starting Chapter Two will help.

Also, cupcakes?


I ordered the playing card pieces off of a baking site, but it was totally worth it.

Anyway, onto my penciling process. The real insanity, and yet streamlining, of my process has been how I now do pretty much ALL my rough pencils on separate pieces of paper and then light box them onto 11x17 artboard:


Or something like that. I'll also use Manga Studio's perspective rulers to make grids or check for perspective errors during this process. This can mean that I end up with like, three pieces of paper layered on top of each other to get something done but hey, it's worth it, right?

And this is generally what a finished page of pencils will look like, complete with a few notations on my part to note where an image will need to be moved, shrunk, enlarged, whatever when I get to the inking phase:


It's not magic, really. You don't always get everything right the first time and it's all about tweaking constantly till the final image is what you want. Penciling is by far the most labored part of my process. I hate to use that term, but I mean that in the sense that it's the part of the process that I spend the most time and thought in and it's where I try to capture my story before polishing it with inks and tones.

Other than that, the new Superboy comic is pretty good only two issues in. The covers are GORGEOUS and I'm not usually someone that cares too much about the cover so long as the inside is good, but the story is fun even if I'm not totally sold on the interior art. Too much detail with the coloring when I can see so much potential in the pencils and inks.

Which reminds me, I'm still reading the Flash and await Francis Manapul's return to the title. That man's art is inspiring.

1 comment:

  1. The picture of those cupcakes is beautiful, but it can never completely communicate how totally freakin' delicious they were. ♥

    Also: yay, process!

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