Production Blog 1

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Welcome to my first production blog for "The Super Cliche Hero Chick #3". This week I began work on my first page of the story. However it is not the first page of the book. That's right I'm doing the book out of sequence. The reason I'm doing it this way is so that I can get a better consistency with each setting and group of characters. For instance scenes set in the lab will all be drawn together, thus the lab will look the same in all of them because I'll be drawing it all at the same time. It's kind of like how a movie will film all of it's scenes on one set then move on to the next. I've done it before back on Neuropsychosis, but stopped when it became a twice a week web comic. I'm glad to be doing things this way again. of course the key to doing things this way is to have a tight script and thumbnail sketches. For info on that see the prologue.


So the order I'm doing the scenes, is

The Alice transforms into Hero Chick scene.
                                                          The Lab Confrontation.
                                                           Alice meets Erin.
                                                           Erin on the roof.
                                                           The two Blokes.
                                                           The Aftermath.
                                                           The meta human melee.

That all of course probably means little to you, as you won't know the story until the book is out (I won't be spoiling) but the outline can be ascertained by the aforementioned prologue. 

So onto this week. This week, I finalized the sketches and dialogue, with my co writer Ruben. Then on Tuesday I spent some time working out my schedule, and deciding which page I was going to do first. I hate doing the first page first, because it is the first page anyone sees. I want it to be great and the great pages don't usually start happening until the middle of the job. So which image to pick, I realized I'd probably only get one page done this work week, (I do the most work on the weekends) So I decided that I was going to do  the transformation scene. there where a few reasons. It's a six panel grid, it's a story point thus quickly read, it has easy gag based cartooning, and it's in the dead center of the book. So if it turns out to be one of the lesser pages quality wise it does it's function and is soon forgotten.

So on Wednesday afternoon, I sharpened up a brand new non photo blue pencil (a bit of a tradition, ball players don't wash their hats, I start a book with a fresh pencil) and began work on my page. I finished it earlier today, I tend to pencil and ink on alternating days and as I get into the flow, a difficult page will be done in two days and easy ones, two a day.

Since this is the first, Production blog. I'll mention my process. if you'd like pictures click here.

After  the sketch is done I lay out my panel grid in non photo blue pencil. I scribble it in then rule the lines with a straight edge.

I then rough in the panels with non photo blue. In panels that aren't flat (closeups the straight on shots in this page) I lay down a perspective grid in you guessed it non photo blue pencil. some times I do this before roughing in the panels.

Then I properly start on rough sketches, this includes gesture drawings of the characters and scribbly versions of the backgrounds, sometimes the backgrounds involve light boxing a photo, I only trace pictures that are mine.

I then do balloon placement. I hand letter so balloon placement is very important, If I have too much dialogue and not enough space it can ruin the whole thing.

Next I finish up the pencils. First I do the panels that I'm certain I can do from memory, and then go onto the panels that I have to use reference for. Do not be afraid of reference, most artists fall into two camps those that use reference and those that lie about not using reference. It's not cheating, you can't remember everything. However it is important to draw your drawing not the reference, I can tell you that the panels I did from my reference library look nothing like the photos beyond the pose.

Then I ink the borders and do the lettering. The key to this is taking your time and using your tools.

Then I ink the art. I start with the figures, move on to, The back grounds, and then place the blacks. White out is added if necessary. When doing the figures I try to keep my line active and varied. making sure depth is achieved in any foreshortened figures. I then do the background with a straight edge once again making sure depth is achieved. For this and my last book I use a fine tipped Japanese brush marker for the figures and technical markers for the backgrounds. I used to swear by a crow nib pen, but since my carpal tunnel surgery, they have not worked well for me. The brush marker allows me a lighter touch, and the flexibility that I was accustomed to as a pen inker.

well that's all for now. I'll be back next Thursday with the next week's progress.

David