The Lightbox.

Hey there. Just figured I'd drop a line to show you guys that I'm still out there and working. I've gotten going on Hero Chick Issue 5  and things have been going well, but onto what I've decided to talk about today. For the first four issues of Hero Chick I've drawn my final art straight to the board but with issue 4 I felt like I was keeping things too simple with my panels. I was having a hard time drawing small, cleanly, as well. This paired with the fact that issue 5 entails an airborne fight with a dragon as well as many pages with a four panel row grid, I've decided to go back to sketching many of my panels on a separate sheet of paper and then transferring them via a lightbox.
Many artists compose their whole pages this way and I in fact did many a page of Neuropsychosis this way. But as I prefer the looser quality of drawing direct to the board, I elect to choose which panels I lightbox on a panel by panel basis. The panels I choose are typically the ones that I'm having trouble with, or the ones that I feel are going to be quite involved. The advantage of  lightboxing is that you can have as many passes at the drawing as you'd like without messing up the board. This allows you to be a bit bolder in your compositions and messier in your drawing (a big advantage for me). The disadvantages are it takes more time, you're literally drawing your panel one more time, and it may result in a stiffer drawing. The second is the reason I usually choose not to use this method. But there are ways around both of these issues, which I'll talk about in our case study.

We're going to talk about panel one of The Super Cliche Hero Chick issue 5. the panel depicts Alice (aka Hero Chick) leaving a classroom and Professor Le Mark keeping her around for a second. The first approach that I took to the panel which I had already roughed in and lettered was adequate but a tight perspective made it look too stagey. I had erased a bit but it was becoming a mess, so I went to the Lightbox.

I traced off the panel shape and text placement. And set out to draw a new approach. as seen here.

See how I can draw with much more abandon than I can directly onto the board. But here's where the second disadvantage comes in, to avoid a stiff final image I try to keep things very loose drawing only the structural elements of the drawing. This also saves time. Now to transfer.

this is my lightbox.

it is comprised of a fluorescent loop under my glass topped draughting board. This allows me to make the decision to lightbox at any time. So I tape the sketch onto the back of the Bristol board in the right spot fire up the light and transfer the drawing onto the front of the board in non photo blue. Of course being careful to keep my lines sketchy and loose not definite and hard. resulting in this.

Note the crappy previous version under the transferred drawing. I then just finish the pencil are in the typical fashion.

note the transfer in panel 5

The rest is business as usual. Ink it up and Show it off on your blog.

Thanks. Talk to ya soon.