My process

For those curious about these things, here’s my process for this project. Here’s a rough page half done. I still need another pass with a blue pencil on the last 3 panels before I put a pencil line over. You’ll notice a little arrow in the first panel, to remind me to centre the woman later in photoshop. This stage is done on 8.5 x 11 paper. Once it is done, I scan it in photoshop, and post it on a ‘work blog’ where Sharon Gaskell will leave me comments. For example, I just got her comments regarding page 5 (previous post), and now I know the guy she uses as a taxi drives a beat up Toyota, with cracked windshield, one busted headlight, and the bumper held in place with ropes. Her feedbacks are essential to make these stories as authentic as I can.
Once I make the changes from the comments, I will blow up the roughs in photoshop and print them on 11 x 17 paper. I will then use them as underdrawings on a light table and draw the final page on a nice grainy paper. Then I’ll send the HiRes file to Cassie for coloring.

A rough page

Here’s page 5 in progress. This is my first rough and at this stage, I’m basically just ‘blocking’ the action and working on the composition. A few things will change by the time I get to the final pencils. The grey is only there to help frame the panels for now.

It’s coming…

Color test

First color test from Cassie…