Before I start any work I need a script to work with. Jack Briglio is the awesome writer I have the pleasure of working with. Each writer/artist situation is different. Working with Jack is great. Before we even started work on the script we went back and forth a lot listening to each others ideas about what the story should be and how it should play out.
Once the script is finalized I finally start work on loose layouts. When laying out the page I think about the pacing of the story and also where the copy bubbles are going to go. It is very important to consider these things. You really want to make sure the story flows and your bubbles are not covering up any important things in the panels.
From there I go to my "penciling" stage. I do this stage digitally since it's what I enjoy. I find that I work better penciling digitally since it's really easy to change things if I don't like the way they look.
I then print out my page really light blue and start inking. I forgot to take a photo of the inking stage. But just imagine the page without any colour yet. :)
Inking all done I use a tooth brush to splatter Art Masking Fluid to create the stars in the sky. Masking Fluid is awesome, once it dries you can watercolour right over it. The parts of the page that are covered in Masking Fluid stay watercolour free. I wait for the watercolours to completely dry before rubbing off the Masking Fluid. It's really easy to rub off and presto! Stars!
When I work in watercolours I like to work on different parts of the piece at once. When one area is drying I move on to the next. On these pages I worked with all the actually colours of the objects first making sure they follow the same light source. My shadows a lot of the time I use purple since I find it makes a really great shadow colour in most cases and I add in some complementary colours as well. When colouring you really need to consider the colour wheel. To pull colours into the background you need to use complementary colours and this also applies to shadows. It pulls the colour back and it's not as bright. I make my colours brighter in the foreground than the background to add depth to the piece. When working on a piece with many colours it is also important what shade of those colours you pick. Some colours just don't work well together and it's best to pick a palette that works well for the piece.
Once I am completely done it's time to scan. I use an Epson scanner since I find it scans colours beautifully. I have to scan it in two pieces and photomerge in Photoshop after. It's an extra step since the scanner is only 8.5x11, but it's worth it for the quality. I do some clean up and touch ups in photoshop from there. As you can see I did a major change to the final with the last panel. I found that making the last panel a full bleed make the page read better and made the panel feel more epic. The world is so large it goes right off the page.
The final step is lettering. I open up the script from Jack once again at this point. I figure out the sizing of the bubbles and the copy. I also test out different types of fonts for the actual bubbles and the sound effects in the story. I do all my lettering in Illustrator.
Finally you are done! Get a lower resolution file ready for internet publishing and you are good to go.
I hope you all enjoy my process! :) And make sure to follow Boo Bear and Flo! Part of Saturday Morning Webtoons!
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