CREATING COMICS 101

What's up guys.  Hope the summer has been treating you well.  Full sized layouts (roughs) for many Draco At War pages have been done, and final pencils and some inking have begun.

I had some time to meditate on where I've been (having my storyboards reviewed at SDCC in 2011), and where I've come (Going into my 3rd year at the Kubert School).  It's been an interesting ride.

But let's get on with this update:

PENCILS FOR PG 3 PANEL 2

I posted the full sized roughs on tracing paper I did for this page awhile back.  You can see how the pencils changed from that stiffness and became more alive.  The rough was just so I would know how to place things, where they would fit on the page and roughly what size the final images would be.

Basically what I do is re-rough over the old rough onto good paper using a lightbox.  At this point the only think I'm thinking about is proportions, are they pretty accurate.  I take pictures of myself posing using Photo Booth on my laptop.  Sometimes when we are drawing and not checking what we are doing, heads get too small, ears get put in the wrong place, arms get too long, or are different lengths on the same figure.  I want to avoid as much of that as possible.  I use a 2H lead holder for this first pass.  The lead is harder so the lines I draw are lighter.

Then I'll start tightening up the pencils, tweaking anatomy and I'll try to make figures and faces look cool.  I'll also start adding details and start thinking about how I am going to ink it.  I do that with an HB lead holder.  The lead is softer so the lines I draw are darker.

INKS FOR PG 3 PANEL 2

When I have the pencils pretty much how I want them, I re-draw the image, but this time with ink.  Inking is not tracing.  It's drawing.  I try to have small quick confident lines, not slow, weak, wobbly lines.  Don't be afraid of ink.  It's not permanent, you can always use white paint to erase.

My line work was done with a Tachikawa School Pen nib and Eon Vortex Ink.  I like the school pen, it's a Japanese nib that gives pretty good thick to thin, and yet is firm enough to not go too nuts if I press too hard.  I have tons of nibs for my nib holder, but that one is just the one that's in there right now, and it doesn't clog up too much, so I'm cool with it.  There is nothing worse than dropping a line and having your nib dry up… the odds of you dropping that same exact line are few to none.  I can get tons of lines out of one dip with the school pen.

I use the Eon Vortex ink because it's waterproof and copic proof and it doesn't smear or bleed when dry.  It's amazing.  I've tested a lot of inks.  I've made test pages with tons of lines from lots of different inks, and then smeared copics or watercolors over them, and I've measured how much each one bleeds.  They all bleed to some degree, all the ones I've tried, except Eon Vortex.  Try it yourself and see.  We are always looking for top materials.  The Eon Vortex ink is also a matte black which means it has no gloss, which is also good for scanning.  Sometimes the gloss of other inks reflects light more when you scan.  The trick here is not to mix inks on your page though.  I picked up my pocket brush a few times and then remembered it had rapidograph ink in it, which is glossy.  oops.

For the heavier black spots I'm using a Raphael #2 brush and dipping it in the Eon ink.

PAGE  3 W.I.P.

This is a peek at the W.I.P.  for page 3.  It still needs more ink and white paint, but this is all part of the process.  Drawing comics is a process.  One of my buddies said you gotta love the process, not just the finished product, or you are in the wrong line of work.  As comic book artists we spend more time "in the process" than anything.  So we gotta love that place where we get ink and sweat on the mat, the mat being the paper.  I'm mixing up martial arts and comic analogies here.  But you get the idea.

For the white out i'm using a Sharpie paint pen, and I have some Deleter white 2 for larger paint spots.  For smaller details I'm using a Koh-i-noor .35 rapidograph pen and for technical stuff, where circle guides are needed, I use a copic multiliner 0.5.  They don't bleed under the tools like a nib does.  I also use a 0.8 copic multiliner for the panel borders.  

THESE ARE ALL THE TOOLS USED THUS FAR FOR THIS PAGE (RULER NOT SHOWN)

And Boom!  there you have it.  UPDATE COMPLETE.

See you soon!

*poof*

working things out.

Much of comic booking is problem solving.  You are looking for creative ways to solve a puzzle.  When you get to the art part you are trying to figure out the puzzle presented by the writer.  The writer had to problem solve their way through the script or story or plot before the art part even starts.

Right now much of what I am doing is going through the script, trying to understand the characters, and  decide how to break each page into panels.  There is no absolute way of drawing comics, everyone should problem solve in their own creative, individual, way.  But there are some points to keep in mind that will kind of keep you on the right path.  Ideally I want to have at least one wide-shot and one close-up on each page.  The wide-shot tells the reader where the characters are, or location, who is in the scene, and gives feeling and context to the other panels.  The close-up lets the reader get close and really enter into the story, to feel what a character may be feeling or to see certain necessary details or props.  As you get to know people better you get physically closer and closer, you don't stay on the other side of the room while they are talking.  You enter into the room and walk closer.  And then of course you have lots of different shots and angles in-between or around the wide-shot and the close-up.  Ideally I want to lead the readers' eye through the page and have them stop on things I feel are important and encourage them to turn page after page until they get to the end of the story.

There are a lot of things to think about, which is why much of this is problem solving, but problem solving and puzzles are fun… that's why we love to play Professor Layton games.  :)

full sized Draco At War rough

So this is a full size "rough" from the script.  Basically I thumb-nailed out the panel breakdown for this page in my sketchbook, and then I worked out the layout full-size, on 11x17 copy paper,  using blue and red pencils until I more or less had the panels and figures where I wanted them.  And then I tightened up those figures by placing a piece of tracing paper over the full size blue and red pencil scribbles and drew some more ink-like lines with a wooden pencil.  And this is what I ended up with.

This is not what the final pencils or inks will look like, this is still more or less a rough.  It's tighter than most of the roughs I normally do, but I want to make sure it's readable and that I have the information I need before I go to the next step.  In the fourth panel I need to shrink the size of the figures more or at the very least move them down and to the right.  Finn's head is way too close to the top of the panel.  I noticed that when I stood up and got further away from the board.   But again this is just a rough so it's easy to change.  What I'll do next is take this rough and transfer it to bristol board, the final good paper, using a light box, in order to get ready for finished pencils and inks.

The "rough" above is not exactly what was presented in the script.  But not only am I looking for a variety of camera zoom-ins and zoom-outs, as well as movements, I am also keeping in mind the flow of dialogue and how easy that dialogue is to read as it is laid out in the panels.  The page design is a blend of words and drawings to tell a story.  The story needs to be clear enough to read through drawing and action that you don't need words, but the words offer more depth and insight and detail… and ultimately become "part of" the art.

Another thing I have to keep in mind is character design and presentation.  The characters appear again and again and again, panel after panel as the story is acted out.  So the characters have to be recognizable and consistent.  Their silhouettes should differ from one another so that even if there is no rendering detail we should know who is who based on size and shape and posture.  Plus, they need to look interesting.  Because of that I am always playing with sketches and scribbles of the characters in an attempt to get to know them better.  I need to know the way the look from every angle and I need to understand their expressions and gestures and their history so I know why they do and say the things they do… understanding that their actions may contradict their words.

Finn study done in watercolor

It's all a process of layering.  You build on what was before, adding and adding until you get to the end product.

I'm trying to get six full process, full color, pages done by the end of the month.

Check back for details and updates on Draco At War.

-Erik

SUMMERTIME SCI-FI SPACE PUNK GOODNESS

Well, after nine months of drawing assignments for school, I finally made it home for the summer… and I finally got my studio space set up.  Packing and unpacking is probably the worst part of moving.  Just moving stuff is whatever, you just make your body do it, you don't have think about it, you can go on auto-pilot… but to pack and especially unpack, you have to use brain power, you have to think… it's exhausting.  :p

INTERSTATE STUDIO

I've got the 21 page script for "Draco at War" printed out and on my table, I'll be spending the bulk of this summer trying to get that drawn and ready for print.

Also, keep an eye out this summer for the KICKSTARTER for Burdens of Draco, an 80 page graphic novel that we hope to release.   We ultimately decided to split up Burdens of Draco into 4, 80 page, graphic novel volumes so the wait wouldn't be as long for print and so it would be more manageable to produce.  The Kickstarter will help us get that first book made, and make sure that you get a copy of it mailed to you as soon as it's printed.  Plus we'll have other cool limited Draco items available that I'm pretty excited about.

That's about it for now, I'll post some art as I begin to tackle Draco at War.

Enjoy your summer!

Erik

A CHARACTER SKETCH AND A TEASER POSTER

With year 2 at the Kubert School winding down, I find the pool of assignments we are wading in to be steadily growing deeper and deeper as more and more homework pages are piled on.  Still, I can't help but want to crank out some Draco stuff when I can find time to squeeze it in, either as an assignment, or just for fun.

I've been playing with ink and watercolor quite a bit this year, so I returned to that for these pieces, and added some Col-Erase pencils for some of the shadows and additional values.  I kind of dig the way the colors look, but that may just be because I'm a sucker for traditional methods.

This first one is a sketch of THRASH doing some sword training.  He's a cool character.  Doesn't say a whole lot, but takes his swords pretty seriously.  He kind of reminds me of "snake eyes in space" minus the black suit… and he "can" talk, he just doesn't blabber.  

THRASH

And this second piece is a kind of Teaser Poster for DRACO: AT WAR.  More than anything I thought it would be cool to get a glimpse of Planet Tronun.  Though this is not an image from the story itself, it gives a hint of what may be in store for our characters in the 20 page comic.

DRACO: AT WAR TEASER POSTER

I'm still figuring out what I want the book style to look like. It's constantly changing, ever-evolving, and pretty exciting, because it can be whatever we want.  So my goal is just to make it look as cool as I possibly can.  

Enjoy!  More updates coming soon…

Erik

BURDENS OF DRACO BEGINS

I am the Artist for the up and coming Graphic Novel: BURDENS OF DRACO.

ZAYDEN

KEIRA

RUNE

These are some of the preliminary character sketches I'm doing to prepare for the book.  The script is finished and complete.  The only thing that is left is for me to actually sit down and draw it.  It's looking like it's going to be a 300 page full color sci-fi explosion of epic goodness… which is a ridiculously massive undertaking on my part… but one I am super excited to tackle.  If you are into drawing comics, you realize what I'm talking about here.  To take a page from script to thumbnails to full sized roughs to finished pencils to inks to colors and then add lettering is a super intensive process.  So this blog is a sneak peek into that process.

The writer and I plan on launching a KICKSTARTER summer 2015 to enable me to take the time to bring this dream of ours to life.  

I'll be posting updates at we get closer to that event, exclusive content such as free wallpapers, sketches and scribbles, concept and design art, page layouts and thumbnails, and even some finished pages.  So if you've ever wanted to see first hand what goes into making comics, check back often.

Because this is such a massive project we plan on releasing the chapters as they are completed in PDF format for those who support the Kickstarter, that way you can read the comic as it happens, before you get your Giant Sized Book in the mail.

Thanks in advance for the support.  Questions and Comments are always welcome.

Erik