Killeroo Submission Process

Killeroo creator Darren Close recently announced a new 120pp Killeroo comic and has been looking for submissions from artists and writers. I was fortunate enough to have my submission accepted. Here is the process I went through to create the submission page.


Here are the rough page layouts that I came up with. I was happy with the angles and general images in the first attempt but not the placement or frame sizes so I redrew the frames not bothering with the sketches.

Next I framed up my final on a piece of bristol and roughly sketched in the panels before inking the panel borders to make sure everything fitted like I wanted. Notice the seam in the middle - I have an A4 scanner and consequently have to stitch every page I do together. With these pencils the seam is noticeable because I couldn't be bothered fiddling around for an hour when the overall effect comes across just fine.

Happy with that I drew up the final pencils

You may notice a few extra elements added in these preliminary inks. I never know what the final page needs until I get some ink on. I find creating a page a very organic process and never do 'finished' pencils. It involves so much rubbing out, increases the amount of time I spend on a page but mostly because I hate tracing. Tracing makes images stiff and lifeless. Slapping on ink gives me so much more flexibility and movement, sure sometimes a little bit of white out is necessary but the end result is so much better.

Then the final inks. I've blown up the 3rd panel in photoshop as I felt it was too small and cleaned all the smudges my scanner leaves. I also changed the expression on Jock's face in the last panel as he looked like he was smiling. And voila!

PS motorcylces are a bugger to draw!