Deadly Tales

As of today, my longtime creative partner Mark Peaslee and I submitted a piece for consideration to be included in an anthology to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. As I scanned the page at each stage of completion (which I rarely, if ever, do) I thought it might be fun to give y'all a glimpse of my artistic creative process.

I first begin with a thumbnail breakdown (not shown) which is then translated on to the actual comic page using non-photo blue pencils (shown above). I adopted using these pencils several years ago when I learned that it is a common practice for animators to eliminate the time it takes to erase pencil lines. With my scanner being only legal size I have to scan the 11 x 17 original art in 2 separate pieces...hence the "dirty" middle line.

I then add inks over the non-photo blue pencil (shown above). Typically I use a combonation of brush and pen to give the art an organic, "alive" feel. However, as this piece centers around a man dying I used a pen-only approach to depict a static, lifeless surrounding/point of view.

The final stage happens once I've scanned in the inked linework to Photoshop. After a bit of clean-up I add spot blacks, dialogue, a title if necessary and on occasion grey tones and values. Above you can see the final piece submitted for the anthology!

Hope you've enjoyed this glimpse in to my process and please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see more of these types of posts in the future. As always, thanks for reading and I'll be back soon with more art and some very cool news!!