As I work on my current project I’ll be putting up progress pics of the entire process.
This page will update as I complete the pages.
Here are the thumbnails of pages 1-7.
I use index cards for my thumbnails. It allows me room to draw what I need, but there is a danger of adding too much detail which isn’t the purpose of thumbnails.
When I scanned these in and blew up to a larger canvas I then tweaked the pencils if they were too big or -in the case of pg 7- added additional panels.
13/2/17
Progress on Page one which is a full page spread. You can see the blue lines from the initial thumbnail sketches.
One site which has started to become invaluable for me is Pinterest which is a great resource for collecting reference photos for anything you need. Here it’s helped with designing the masks. This is suppose to be an extravagant festival so even these background extras need to look one of a kind. This will come back and bite me later on in the story.
14/2/17
4 pages penciled and scanned ready to be inked. Because I’m inking my own work I’ve been catching myself go “This is wrong. I’ll fix when I scan it” or “I can do this background during the inks”
This is a huge positive of doing all the work. You can draw a panel and if you realise too late that a hand is too small or characters or not close enough you don’t have to break out the eraser and instead just leave a note for future self to resize later.
The mask for Sam (top panel) is way more complicated than it should be so when I ink this will change and I’ll fix the mask when I pencil the next batch of pages. Also her hairstyle changed because hair is so not my expertise.
17/2/17
I have 10 pages penciled and will start inking tomorrow.
I’m using bristol board for penciling but I finding it to be a waste of good paper. As I’ve been drawing I’ve cut corners or not fully draw a panel at all because it’ll be easier on the computer. I’m thinking of looking into just normal drawing paper but of thicker stock so I can use the back of the page (printing thumbnails and penciling).
I’m starting to get a hang of drawing the faces of the main characters so I will be correcting the previous panels when I ink.
19/2/17
WELCOME TO THE LANTERN MASQUERADE!!!
Page one is inked!!
It’s a splash page so not as fiddly layers wise. The buildings did prove to be tough even with a reference photo.
Colours will come after I’ve inked the first 10 pages.
1/3/17
3 pages are inked. Should have the first 10 pages done in the next 2 weeks at this pace. I’m finding shortcuts to get the same effects but I can see that at times I need a detailed pencil layer in some cases while others I just need a rough layout.
I can’t tell you how motivated this project has got me to work on some longer scripts.
But I know my art isn’t there yet to do those stories justice. Better to improve over several 22 page stories rather than one 100 page idea and feel the need to redraw the first half again. That being said I’m seeing the sticking points in my art and have been sketching on spare paper working them out.
Luckily I have a lot of comics to browse and take notes on how the artists tackle the areas I’m struggling with and incorporate it into my art.
6/3/17
7 pages inked.
Pressing on to get the first 10 pages inked by the weekend and start throwing some colours around like a madman.
If all goes to plan I’m thinking of the first page being published by the week starting Monday 20th. Also looking into setting up an account on tapastic and post on that maybe brush the dust off my deviantart as well..
Kevin Pass 