I’m starting a new comic project for the first time in 5 years. I’ve got a script, a publisher waiting, and 24 pages of “paper” ruled and waiting.

A blank sheet of paper is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Another page of digital pencils. This one was done in July. I’m currently working on page 159 but my productivity slowed to a crawl when I started my current storyboarding gig. I went from a page a day to a panel or two a week. But – unlike other ‘breaks’ I’m still plugging away. And my current schedule has a week off after every two boards, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to play catch up during the weeks off. I’m still hoping   to have the pencils complete early in the new year and inks done by mid-summer.

I’ve hit the part of the story where I really can’t show full pages without spoilers, so from now on it’ll be a panel here and there for show and tell.

And… here’s page 144, drawn in Manga Studio:

So, yesterday I showed a random page of pencils using my newish digital technique. I was thinking that to show my process I would live blog a step by step of each stage. I never quite got around to it, but I did take a screen cap every few steps so you can get the idea of the process.

So, first I start off with a blank template page with faint grid marks for a 6, 9, 8 and 12 panel grids. Then I start sketching out my thumbnails. This can involve moving panels around, shrinking them, blowing them up, or moving them to another page altogether to make room for what I need. sometimes I’ll do a few different angles of a panel saving each on a separate layer so I can pick my favorite later. This one turned out pretty straight forward.

Then I reduce the opacity of the ‘thumbnail’ so I can see better and start drawing, panel by panel.

When I’m done, I make any last minute adjustments You can see that I shifted the middle tier up a smidge to make room for the dialog in the bottom tier. Then I make the panel borders and we’re done and ready for lettering and inking.

There a few more steps in between, but they’re hard to show. I’ll often keep characters on separate levels so I can scribble and erase and transform one without affecting the other. But, that’s basically all there is to it.

I’m slowly working my way through the final 70 pages of Wahoo Morris. I roughed them out in a space of a few weeks, and I’m now in the process of cleaning them up. My original plan was to just get the basic construction done digitally, then print them out, slap them on the light table, and do the clean drawing on the final Strathmore before lettering and inking.

My ‘roughs’ are turning out pretty close to finished pencils, so I’m thinking, instead of wasting time tracing them on the the light table I might buy myself a large format printer and just print them out in blue line and ink directly over that after the odd touch up with pencil.

Anyhoo, that’s still a decision for a few weeks at least into the future. In the mean time, here’s a random page of digital pencils.