So I decided to start a little art blog here, showing you some sketches as well as process pages! Get a load of some of the behind the scenes of what it takes to make a finished Pomp page!
Okay so I start with a little page like this: a loose sketch, done in Open Canvas 1.1. Why? I prefer the line quality to Photoshop, and you’ll see what I mean when I get to the inking stage. I do all my story pages digitally, yes, though some strips are pencils scanned and toned in Photoshop. I always start with a sketch in pink as opposed to light blue,
because blue recedes and thus is harder to see on a white surface. Warm colors advance, so it’s easier to see. Hence, my pink lineart.
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After that, I bring it into Photoshop (CS2 currently) to do the borders up all nice, and to resize it accordingly, add my “bleed” and nudge, resize, or fix any part of the sketch I need before the ink stage. I usually go bounce between the programs often. In the ink stage, I’m careful to consider tangents (areas of the lineart that touch too closely, creating awkward visual illusions), as well as lineweight (thick to thin). Okay, when I say “I’m careful to” I really mean, I’m lazy, but partially considering… XDD Anyway, when I’m done with inks (which I do in SEVERAL layers for modifyability) it looks something like this….
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After inking in Open Canvas, I bring it back over to Photoshop, turn the lineart to bitmap. It’s easier for me to modify the colors (and I DO modify often) when I don’t have to deal with anti-aliased (fuzzy) lines. I turn it to CMYK mode for later printing (hint hint), and then I’m ready to plunk in the colors. (View my tutorial on how I physically color the pages, step by step here.) I begin with flats which looks something like this…
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After that layer, I throw on a layer of shading. Here’s what the shading layer looks like alone.
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I throw it on Multiply blending mode, over top of my flats to make it look like this…
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But that ain’t all! I gotta add a bunch of effects including lighting effects, motion lines/blurs, edits, highlights, etc.Now I’m not just throwing on some crazy photoshop filters or nothing; rather, these are hand-chosen effects, done in a multitude of layers, blending modes, selections, etc. As for colors, I went with yellow not because “hey that’s the color of light” (which isn’t possible) but because yellow is the compliment of Purple, the ruling color in my palette.
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Lastly comes my least favorite part of LIFE…. the digital lettering TnT I dooo detest it. I learned how to letter in illustrator when my professor showed me Balloon Tales, an awesome tutorial site on lettering. Go to it. Now. In addition, I yoink my fonts from DaFont because you can see which ones are copyrighted and which ones are free. Woot. Now I do my lettering and bubbles in Photoshop, but I argue what the professors say when they tell me it’s “easier” to do sound effects in Illustrator. More modifyable? A little. Easier/Faster? Heck no. I can do a fancy-to-do sound effect in under 3 minutes in Photoshop, in what takes me half an hour in Illustrator. Granted, I’ve worked with Photoshop for bout 5 or 6 years now, and I’ve only dappled in Illustrator for lettering for a little under a year… Oops. Oh well. I hate it. LoL
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And well there you have it. How long does it take me to complete a whole finished page? 2 days on average, about a day for sketching and inking. Then a day for the rest of inking, coloring and lettering. Granted, I’m a full time student, and a shop-a-holic so my “days” consist of few hours, and long nights. But there you have it. Pompfiction in the making.
