Friday, October 3, 2014


I got a lot of input on my last post pointing out the problems with the image (especially the nighttime one) and they were all spot on. I really appreciate all the advice people have given and the critiques people have taken the time to make. So many people are afraid of hurting someone's feelings so they won't say anything. Honesty is very valuable to me and it has helped me far more than a pat on the back.
I am finally happy with the process from line art to finished color. I still have mountains to learn, but I'm starting off in the right place.

Thursday, October 2, 2014


Having finalized the process of page creation I figured it was time for a stress test. I gave myself a page with several characters and a fairly detailed background with a 6 hour time limit and simulated surprise editorial changes. From start to finish this page was 45 minutes of thumbnails, 2 1/2 hours from layouts to final inks (I used Sketchup to do the background line work) as a time saver), and 3 1/2 hours colors. I flatted this myself which added 2 hours to the process. That's something I won't usually do. Once I completed the colors, I acted as if I the script forgot to mention the scene took place at night and I had to do a hasty revision. The changes I made took about 45 minutes.

Not entirely happy with the first version. The main reason for that is I decided to go for a daytime shot and those tend to bore me. I like a little more drama.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014


This is very close now to what I'm going for. I need to punch up the line work a bit and be careful about simplification in the wrong places. I switched to rendering the backgrounds by hand rather than relying on 3D renders. It's more time consuming, but much better looking.