Told you I'd be back.
Okay it wasn't as quickly as I had intended but it was still pretty quick based on my past posts. On that note I thought I'd bring everyone up to date on how the first page of the graphic novel is coming.
As you can see below I've started working on the inking and colouring for each frame on page one. Going over the cleaned up pencil scan I add in all the black lines and shadows on a separate layer. There are a lot of artists who ink the entire page and then hand it off to someone else for colouring. A good team has a feel for what each person is doing and sometimes the slightest little marks on a page by the penciller tell the inker where to add in a solid fill and then marks by the inker tell the colorer what they're trying to achieve. In my case, since I'm the penciller, inker and colorer I thought I'd try doing each frame one at a time. This may not be the best method and I'm not entirely sure if that's how I'll continue to do it but for now that's what works.
The upside to working digitally is that I can decide to add layers upon layers so that I can turn on or off areas of the illustration so that I'm not distracted by something. This allows me to focus on just the portion I need to focus on and not get sidetracked by the desire to add more blood dripping from his chin. The overall blueish tinge to the first two frames is intentional and the reason will be obvious as you see the page progress.
One thing I hadn't considered when we started this project was the Russian text. My Russian is pretty rusty . . . to the point of non-existent . . . and I'm going to need to have the text confirmed eventually but this certainly looks good. I had to run the English dialogue through a translator and then locate an appropriate cyrillic font. Fortunately there's not a lot of Russian in the story, the odd scene here and there, but not too much. I hope. Now where did I put my notes.
Okay it wasn't as quickly as I had intended but it was still pretty quick based on my past posts. On that note I thought I'd bring everyone up to date on how the first page of the graphic novel is coming.
As you can see below I've started working on the inking and colouring for each frame on page one. Going over the cleaned up pencil scan I add in all the black lines and shadows on a separate layer. There are a lot of artists who ink the entire page and then hand it off to someone else for colouring. A good team has a feel for what each person is doing and sometimes the slightest little marks on a page by the penciller tell the inker where to add in a solid fill and then marks by the inker tell the colorer what they're trying to achieve. In my case, since I'm the penciller, inker and colorer I thought I'd try doing each frame one at a time. This may not be the best method and I'm not entirely sure if that's how I'll continue to do it but for now that's what works.
The upside to working digitally is that I can decide to add layers upon layers so that I can turn on or off areas of the illustration so that I'm not distracted by something. This allows me to focus on just the portion I need to focus on and not get sidetracked by the desire to add more blood dripping from his chin. The overall blueish tinge to the first two frames is intentional and the reason will be obvious as you see the page progress.
One thing I hadn't considered when we started this project was the Russian text. My Russian is pretty rusty . . . to the point of non-existent . . . and I'm going to need to have the text confirmed eventually but this certainly looks good. I had to run the English dialogue through a translator and then locate an appropriate cyrillic font. Fortunately there's not a lot of Russian in the story, the odd scene here and there, but not too much. I hope. Now where did I put my notes.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get some feedback as I post these updates. Let me know if you have any questions as to why I'm doing something . . . or how I'm doing something. If you have any suggestions let me know those too. As I've said before in a previous post there's a learning curve to this. Many years ago I had taken the time to teach myself how to create comics the old school way and now I'm learning it all digitally. Well most of it. I'm still pencilling the original art. You never know, I may need to get a Kickstarter going and have something to give away.