Yet Another Hammerstein

More Hammerstein coz I love the guy.

A bit of process also. I think I'm going to have to get a copy stand or set something up for photographing images because the ol scanner doesn't seem to cut it for paintings.

Job Dunn: Rode

Some more Job Dunn work going on. Some process on display here.

I thought I'd try a different approach to the way I work and use a more involved process to see what happened. Since I've also decided to take a different approach to the final product I don't know how much I'll learn about how this process will affect my normal work. The difference in the final product is that I'm fulling painting this comic, which isn't something I've done in about 20 years. When I did my first comics at school Simon Bisley was god and painting comics was the only way to go. I soon found out that this was impossible for me and I reverted to plain old ink.

As for the process, I've spent more time on getting the thumbs right (perspective, proportion, etc) so that I could scale them up and trace them. More drawing was necessary but not much. Getting everything right on a small scale was fairly quick and then tracing just made getting all those great proprotions that you get in the thumbs could easily be replicated.

The thumbs are on an A5 sheet with some plain printing paper for all my perspective workings - horizons, right and left VPs, etc

 The traced and elaborated pencils underneath.

A third of the way through the painted page. As can be seen more detail and a few changes here and there.

Normally I would have gone to ink but I went to paint (gouache) so I reckon I'll have to give this process another go (with ink) to see if I really like it. I'm not a fan of too much preparation - I like to get stuck right into the page - but maybe it's what I'm lacking.

2000AD Submission

I've just sent off my third submission to 2000AD. My first was exactly 10 years ago. I hope that in that time I have improved and addressed the problems they identified and that it will be enough to get me that first contract.

I realise there's a flaw in the submission process in that (as I understand it) editors are looking for reliability as well as talent. You can't prove reliability in a submission and talent... well, that's up to them. The best you can do is as soon as you get rejected is submit again.

Anyway. Quite a while ago now I read through the submission guidelines and it seemed that this time they wanted submissions like the Americans do with pencils, inks etc. I found this strange as 2000AD doesn't often break up the art process with usually just a writer, artist and letterer. Anyway, I had been told previously by Mark Chiarello, in showing him my work, that I was a penciller not an inker. So having had several rejections as an inker I thought I'd try my luck and submit pencils. On completing the pencils (to a script they supplied) I looked up the sub guidelines again and found that they had changed back to completed art. Bummer.

I don't usually do much pencilling because I feel stifled when appling the inks and my work ends up stiff and lifeless. I didn't feel like starting all over again as I had other things to get on with so I inked over the pencils and I'm not displeased with the result. Things definitely would have turned out differently going about things the usual way but one always learns thing doing things differently.

You be the judge.

Holed Up written by Richard McTighe can be found and downloaded here and is a fantastic little script.

And now the inks.

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!

Fishman Partial Inks