The Process

Well, I thought I'd explain my extremely tedious process of creating comic book pages. I really dig it when other folks do it. So, here goes. We'll take a look at a page from my recent Rex Mundi stint.

I do a my layouts with a fairly soft pencil. These run fairly small, only taking up a quarter, to half a sheet of letter-size paper. I take the comic page template I use (which is really just a scan of a Dark Horse comic board) and print it out really small. I do my layout on that, so the layout itself stays precisely proportionate to the finished page.



Then I scan it in and convert the file from greyscale to a light monotone blue. I drag the layout over to a template I use for pages (the same scan of a Dark Horse comic board, only, comic-page size (11" X 17")). I then size it appropriately using the free transform tool in PS, erase things I don't need, and sometimes add things freehand using the Wacom tablet. This is also a time to incorporate editor suggestions and/or changes.

I then use the line tool to plot all of the perspective, using the same light blue color for point A, and a light pink for point B.



I reduce this image to about 20% transparency and using my Epson 1400 jumbo inkjet printer, I print it out on a sheet of 11" X 17" Strathmore 400 bristol. The image itself prints super light, and after the page is inked, this "under drawing" is easily removed from the scan by tweaking the brightness/contrast. This whole process saves me time, believe it or not, eliminating hours of erasing and re-drawing and on average, saves me an hour or two per page.

From here I start penciling. I usually start out using a light blue erasable Prismacolor pencil, and later clean it up using a mechanical pencil with a 2H lead. Hey look, it's a penciled page:



Then, I get to work with my Scharff #3 sable and some Higgins black india ink. Oh, hey, what's that - it's an inked comic book page.



And there you have it. Thanks for taking a look. Feel free to comment, you dang lurkers. I know you're there.