"Everybody's DEAD" page process

Hey, peoples! It's been a hot Friday in The Bunker. I'm fighting off a cold, but the lines were flowing like crazy today. I knocked out a whole page of "Everybody's DEAD" #3. Keep on reading, and I'll walk you through the process! *click the pics for a larger view*

1. The Pencils -- Okay, so I was up by 8am. I put on some tea, went through my morning routine, and was at my desk working on the page by 9:30. I started with a pathetic little sketch of the page done in the margins of the script. And between 9:30 and noon, I was able to turn it into this:


It's rough, it's dirty, a little scribbly, but all the main points are there. Certain artists pencil to varying degrees of "tightness." Luckily, I'm my own inker. So I can be loose with some of my pencils, and just pick up the slack when I go to ink. It's almost like I'm being an asshole for myself to work with. Hmm....

2. Inks, Mofo -- With the pencils done, I took a moment to make some more tea and toast (zang!). Then it was back to work! After an hour or so of zen-magic wrist-action, the page looked somethin' like this:

That's what I'm talkin' about, people. Oodles, and oodles of linework. At this point, everything was outlined. My solid-black fills were mapped out (with those little "x's"). And I had erased all the pencils. All I had to do now was handle those fills. Oh and, as tightly drawn as the page was at this point, there were still errors and small fixes that needed attention.

*Some artists will actually use a light-table to do the inks on a separate piece of paper. It spares them the erasing step, prevents them messing up the inks with an eraser, and allows for a freer interpretation of the pencil drawing into an ink drawing. Me, I'm a heathen. I just like to do the majority of my drawing and decision-making right there on the final board.*

3. Inked Up And Ready To Go! -- Step 3 is all about the nitty-gritty. It's filling in blacks. It's making outlines bolder. It's fixes and cleanup. And after some fine tuning with pens and brushes (plus, some TLC from my delicious Bic Wite-Out pen), I bent my knee to the scanner gods. And, thus, my worship brought forth a newborn comic page!



At last, the page was finished. I had it scanned and sent in a little before 5pm. Not a bad day's work, eh?

I hope you've enjoyed this, the first of many "looks-under-the-hood" to come. I'm off to some late-night treats and "Dragon Wars." Oh yes.

-Bunker, Out.