Friday, December 25, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Semester finale!!!
So I just had my painting IV crit today. It went well, and all i have to say is...
I painted a big Dick.
Entitled "Dick Has Ways Of Making You Talk".
I painted a big Dick.
Entitled "Dick Has Ways Of Making You Talk".
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
"Black and White" -The Process
The first of 60 pages is complete! Actually, it might end up being shorter than 60 pages (God willing). Jared, the writer, is going to go over the script again and maybe give it a rewrite in spots. Hopefully it'll reduce my work load.
Upon looking over pages and pages of drawings it was nice to reflect on how the whole process took shape. It all started with reading Jared's 60 page script several times to get a good feel for the characters. Then of course designing the characters followed that. The design stage was probably the most challenging part for me. I almost felt like I had to relearn how to draw. After a few years of drawing caricatures and cartoony illustrations, I had to get back into a more realistic style with accurate anatomy and gestures. After the character designs were completed, I started going through the script again to do thumbnails for each page of the graphic novel. They started off pretty rough, but were refined as I went along.
The process from there starts to get a bit more exciting (well for me at least).
Carter character design
Rico character design
Devil character design
Here's the rough for page 1. Initially I had started to do these just with a pencil and paper, but I think it may have worked better for me to do it in photoshop (which is shown above.) From here I blew it up to 11"x14". This is standard procedure in the comic book industry. After the final image is completed, it gets shrunk down to print size. In this case print size was planned on being 8.5"x11" while comic books generally are a tad smaller.
After I blew it up, I printed it off and traced it onto bristol board. It's called the pencil stage, and its the point where any final revisions are made. The drawing gets tightened up. The pencil artist is a very important position in the whole process for comic books (the pencil artist, inker and color artist are often not the same person). Depending on if the penciler and inker are the same person, sometimes the pencil drawing can be a little looser and less detailed.
The inking stage is a lot of fun for me. This also a very crucial point, but more on a technical level rather than conceptual or compositional level (this was all figured out at the pencil stage). After the inks are done, all the pencil lines are erased and the ink drawing gets scanned in. Then the photoshop fun begins...
After many hours have already been invested by now, the tediousness of painting in photoshop can be a little draining. Never-the-less, you can start to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you stick it out, you'll end up with a finished page.
Upon looking over pages and pages of drawings it was nice to reflect on how the whole process took shape. It all started with reading Jared's 60 page script several times to get a good feel for the characters. Then of course designing the characters followed that. The design stage was probably the most challenging part for me. I almost felt like I had to relearn how to draw. After a few years of drawing caricatures and cartoony illustrations, I had to get back into a more realistic style with accurate anatomy and gestures. After the character designs were completed, I started going through the script again to do thumbnails for each page of the graphic novel. They started off pretty rough, but were refined as I went along.
The process from there starts to get a bit more exciting (well for me at least).
Carter character design
Rico character design
Devil character design
Here's the rough for page 1. Initially I had started to do these just with a pencil and paper, but I think it may have worked better for me to do it in photoshop (which is shown above.) From here I blew it up to 11"x14". This is standard procedure in the comic book industry. After the final image is completed, it gets shrunk down to print size. In this case print size was planned on being 8.5"x11" while comic books generally are a tad smaller.
After I blew it up, I printed it off and traced it onto bristol board. It's called the pencil stage, and its the point where any final revisions are made. The drawing gets tightened up. The pencil artist is a very important position in the whole process for comic books (the pencil artist, inker and color artist are often not the same person). Depending on if the penciler and inker are the same person, sometimes the pencil drawing can be a little looser and less detailed.
The inking stage is a lot of fun for me. This also a very crucial point, but more on a technical level rather than conceptual or compositional level (this was all figured out at the pencil stage). After the inks are done, all the pencil lines are erased and the ink drawing gets scanned in. Then the photoshop fun begins...
After many hours have already been invested by now, the tediousness of painting in photoshop can be a little draining. Never-the-less, you can start to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you stick it out, you'll end up with a finished page.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Comic book progress
It seems that with every stage of this darn thing, I realize how big of an undertaking this project has been and will continue to be. Granted I think I'm getting a little faster at laying out and drawing the pages. Still, its quite a labor intensive project.
Below is the first page and it's almost done. I just threw the text in to get a rough idea of what the completed page will look like. I've got to touch up the coloring a bit, then clean up some other areas.
Below is the first page and it's almost done. I just threw the text in to get a rough idea of what the completed page will look like. I've got to touch up the coloring a bit, then clean up some other areas.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Karzai illustration in progress part deux
Well here he is again. Its almost done. I thought I might throw it up here just for poops and giggles.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Black and White Update
I've been taking a short break from the "Black and White" graphic novel to work on a few illustration projects. Below is a Christmas card illustration. I decided to try it going completely digitally. I started with a pencil drawing, then started painting over the top of it. It's starting to take shape, and I'm enjoying the process.
He're's the roughs for page 1 of "Black and White." I started working it out traditionally with pencil and paper, but I thought I'd try it out in photoshop as well. It's working pretty well especially for making revisions and fine tuning. From here, I'll blow it up to about 11x14, trace and tighten the drawing on bristol board, then finally ink it. Long process, but allows for more and more corrections at every stage eventually producing a good strong drawing.
He're's the roughs for page 1 of "Black and White." I started working it out traditionally with pencil and paper, but I thought I'd try it out in photoshop as well. It's working pretty well especially for making revisions and fine tuning. From here, I'll blow it up to about 11x14, trace and tighten the drawing on bristol board, then finally ink it. Long process, but allows for more and more corrections at every stage eventually producing a good strong drawing.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
President Karzai in progress
I think I finally made a breakthrough with my Wacom and Photoshop. This is a section of an illustration of good ol' Presidents Obama and Afghani Karzai. I'm starting to get much more comfortable with painting in Photoshop. It's taken some time, but finding local and arbitrary colors isn't always that easy in photoshop for some reason.
On a side note, it always surprises me how much quality an image loses when saving a file as a jpeg rather than psd. file.
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