My Comic Book: Issue 4 Page 2: Thumbnails, sketch and final Inks

 The second page of issue #4 has been inked! I wrestled with the set up of this page and it was a little complicated before, but fortunately I was able to simplify it and actually tell a lot more story but with less panels. If you want to see more behind the scenes stuff, check out the youtube episode for the process video and me giving some love to Jack “The King” Kirby. Just in time for his birthday too! Happy Birthday to the king!

My Comic Book: Inking Issue #4, Page 1

I finished up the inking on the first page of The Bomb Squad #4! Feels nice to get this done, now I just have to ride the momentum until it's all finished! Check out the episode here for a bit more of my thoughts on the process.

Here's a better look at the stages that I usually take from thumbnails to tighter sketch then finally to finished inks.

Thumbnails

Rough sketch

Final inks

It’s strange because when I started my comic, it was somewhat a gut reaction to September 11th. And now as I post this, it seems it’s looking rather relevant to issues we face today in the United States. 

And it’s totally a coincidence! This has been brewing in my head for years, but it’s only now I got to sit down and do it. My comic is just a simple adventure of a bomb squad doing their best to thwart evil terrorists from destroying the city. I’m not even trying to make a social statement, but with the climate of the US nowadays even my simple bank robbing heist page seems to take on some deeper, serious meaning!

Don’t worry, it’s not, it’s just your usual comic book bank robbery! BUT... if I can pull this story off right, it might take on a more hopeful tone!

Onto the colors!

Legends of Tommorow!

I drew up a scene from one of my favorite shows right now: DC's Legends of Tomorrow. A great fun show with a lot of great characters. I've really enjoyed the chemistry of all the actors and how they've played off of each other even from the very first episode. It's got a great premise for a show that the writers can use to literally take the heroes any place and to any time. Sure, it's got it's flaws like many shows out there, but the pros far, FAR outweigh the cons.

Quick sketch up of the two figures I wanted to draw. I would constantly
adjust and re-adjust the proportions of the canvas constantly until I can figure
out what the composition would be like. It actually just started out as the two
figures, but I thought up of a way to actually add in storytelling to it by
using text and not have to rely on actually drawing a third figure.

Inking stage is where I did most of the work. I had photo reference for the characters, so
that wasn't a big deal to draw their poses. Figuring out their faces was harder, since I'm pretty bad
with resemblances. While these guys don't look like them, I do like how their faces turned out.

I spotted in the blacks and added some feathering and thickened up some lines to emphasize focus.

There's a lot of character oozing from the... characters... of the show. It was fun to see Captain Cold and Heatwave (the two crooks of the team) hang back, have a beer and watch as White Canary gets into a bar room brawl! In the 70's! While a song from the Captain and Tennille is playing!

Good show all around and one that really runs straight into it's crazy comic book concepts and presents a very different super-hero show from what's out there currently. Go try an episode out!

Enjoying the BVS soundtrack and a little heat vision to melt the hate away!

I'm just brushing away some cobwebs from my stylus and started sketching again.

Since I have Batman v Superman on the brain, I drew up one of my favorite action scenes from the movie. I have never seen Superman's heat vision depicted in all it's glory like they did in the last act of BVS and it was pretty spectacular!

I've also been listening to a lot of the BVS soundtrack as I drive to work and aside from the main character tracks (Beautiful Lie, Is She With You or This Is My World), there are some that I have really come to appreciate more like the great Do You Bleed? track. And it's quite awesome to listen to it while I drive too! My commute to and from work has gotten much more epic! 

Very rough sketch. I put this on it's own layer, then work on another layer to tighten it up.

Another rough sketch. The right hand didn't exist in the original sketch. But when
I took it to the inking stage, it just looked odd that he was missing one arm in the
drawing. Glad digital is so forgiving. And layers. Layers are great. 

Shrank his head down after the initial inking pass. Aside from the
muddy silhouette of his cape to the background in the top left. I kinda
like the starkness of the Black and White version.

Final colors. I messed around with using more traditional Superman blues with his uniform and
changing the background from blue to yellow to orange, but I liked how intense the heat vision
was in the movie, so a semi-monochromatic look was the way to go.

There's still an incredible amount of hate floating around for this movie. I suppose it might never really go away, just as the hate for Man of Steel still hangs over it's head. But re-watching MOS after BVS, just made MOS that much better and it actually gave it a much more tender, sweeter quality to it too. It's interesting, I've read a couple reviewers (pretty big names too, Kevin Smith and Harry Knowles) do a follow up review when they watched it a second time and they leaned a little more favorable.

Sadly, the hate train has already left the station. Choo choo. And their initial dislike for the movie is already etched in all the internet bile that's been thrown at this movie. So while I appreciate their second review... well... the damage really cannot be undone. Though to his credit, Harry Knowles' second review sounded very honest. I liked that he acknowledged that he carried so much baggage in with him on that first viewing, he really didn't enjoy what the film was and hated it for what it wasn't.

In any case, nothing like a big blast of Supes' heat vision to blast the hate away! Take that haters! 

I loved Batman v Superman... Next up Suicide Squad!

So I've been roaming the internets lately and have been doing my civic duty liking BVS posts or tweets and at some points rebutting some haters on my FB page, chatrooms and newsites. BVS has got the fans divided! It's very much like the Man of Steel reaction, actually. Crazy sidenote, I had to comment on a site to help them clarify some things they misunderstood about BVS... here's the catch: it was on a site that prided itself to be a lover of all things Zack Snyder! How's that for divided!

Anyhow, I loved Batman v Superman. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it surely exceeded what expectations I had of it! I'm eagerly counting the days until the blu-ray comes out!

To be honest, I was quite bummed the rest of the world didn't quite feel as excited about it as I was, but after a few weeks of moping and checking the Box Office performance of BVS (which, I'm glad to say will at the very least break even for WB), I'm back on my feet not caring what other people think! Back to work in combating DC hate with fan art! And what better way to do that than making fan art for the DCEU's next film, Suicide Squad!

The second Suicide Squad trailer just dropped a few days ago and it looks absolutely awesome!

Quick sketch on the first layer. I knock down the transparency on this layer
and keep it loose. It's quite a horrible drawing, but I just push foreward.

Inking phase next. The speedline background is on a separate layer as well
as my shadow pass on her face and hands. Usually if I'm a little apprehensive
about something I work on a different layer so that mentally, I'm not stressing
out about running out of undos! It's quite freeing for myself and
I just keep drawing more and worrying less.

Coloring phase. This was a little trickier than my usual drawings.
Usually I have a color scheme in mind already when I start coloring, but I
really had to find it while doing it on this one. I wussed out on the face shadows
and actually made it a color instead of keeping it that stark black from the inks.
I did more colored line effect this time around so the stark blacks on her
face weren't quite working. I added one of my favorite lines from the
trailer to finish off the drawing. The Ballroom Blitz!

So there you have it. I've noticed a lot of some artists I follow on tumblr or twitter post up a lot of Marvel themed sketches (and they're great!). Rarely do I see some DC love (unless it's Batman). So I'm back to try to tip the scales! DC fan powered sketch! Bring the hate, haters! DC Cinematic Universe is going full-steam ahead!

24 hours from now... I will be watching Batman v Superman!

Twenty Fours hours from now, I get to watch the advanced IMAX 3D screening of Batman v Superman at the metreon! I'm so excited! I got the complimentary ticket because the first teaser trailer got leaked early online. The quality was pretty horrible and the internet hate poured onto the movie. From day one this movie has gotten so much hate it's a little insane. But BvS marketing has been pulling out the stops to make sure this movie at least gets a fair shake...

So then, Zack Snyder and the WB decided to give free advance screening passes to the people that went to the free teaser screening that night as a nice gesture to keep the fans happy. I got some flack from some people I work with about going to watch a teaser trailer on an IMAX screen, but I guess it was all worth it after all, eh? The teaser looked great on the IMAX screen even without the free passes by the way!

Sketch phase - I was going to add a silhouette of Lex at the top, but I couldn't really get it to work.
I've gotten accustomed to just a quick sketch to start with. I do most of the thinking in the digital inking stage.
How to render out Wonder Woman was a mystery to me at this point, but I was kinda crossing my fingers
I'd figure it out later when I get the big two inked up...

Black and White digital inks stage - I just placed the official logo on top to
complete the image. Wonder Woman helps me to be lazy with the two big figures
because I didn't have to draw the rest of them from the waist down!

I kept messing around with the color saturation of the background because I wanted it to have the feel of the palette of the movie, but after way too many hours messing with it, I decided to keep it the same saturation I initially had planned for it. At the end of the day, it's just how I mix colors, and I was more satisfied with the final colors sticking to what I knew...

Final colors - this stage is always a love/hate relationship for me. I can never seem to preserve the stark
contrast of the black and whites when I 'translate' it into color. Usually I find a palette that I can live with
and move on. Otherwise, I end up messing with the Hue/Saturation sliders until the cows come home!

I think I like my initial drawing for BVS more because it was in such an odd  size and the color application was simpler. And I think I was actually able to 'translate' the stark contrast of the black and white images for that one better. For this one though, I think it's dimensions make it easier to see it on a computer monitor and are set up more in a traditional movie poster design.

Anyway, as I type this up, I'm listening to the excellent Batman v Superman soundtrack that got officially released on youTube. My hype levels are astronomical!  I'll be jut a few hours away from witnessing the greatest gladiator match the world has ever known! Batman v Superman is going to be awesome! Signing off for now and I hope I can sleep tonight!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel Age: BvS Fan art!

I've been writing up these blog posts of how tough it is to be a DC fan nowadays, especially with the popularity of Marvel Comics currently. However, I've just recently been able to "get past" that feeling. Mainly because of the great quality and quantity that WB entertainment and DC comics have been providing as of late.

4 times during the week, the wife and I have a jam packed TV schedule populated mostly by DC/Vertigo shows! Gotham, Supergirl, Flash, iZombie, Arrow and Legends of tomorrow are on our TV after we've put the kids to bed.

DC's SuperHero girls and Teen Titans Go are great shows for the kids (with a toy line coming for DC Superhero girls). DC Animated movies are still proving to keep their high bar of quality up, and there's a new Justice League coming on TV soon!

Comics wise, I am enjoying the risks DC is taking with the DCYou (though others aren't) and Movie-wise, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman are in production and of course Batman v Superman's premier is coming really soon! Check out the final trailer for BvS:



Suffice to say, that's a lot of great DC related comic book content to be enjoyed!

So sure, I live in the Marvel age and everybody, in general, hates DC. But I don't really care now! I used to want to justify to everybody just how great DC is, and always felt I had to defend it. Now with all this stuff coming out and being produced, I'm just swept up in so much AWESOME.

Oh, I'll probably still rant about it from time to time, but it's such a great feeling to know that I really do get to experience some quality DC entertainment! As a DC fan, I am absolutely having a great time in my DC oasis and since there's a LOT of it for me to digest, I don't have time to get bogged down in the hate.

There's so much fantastic DC related media out there I don't need to have sour grapes about Marvel anymore!

Anyhow, I decided to join this contest for Batman v Superman fan art. The prize isn't really that great, but I just wanted to participate to be a part of it and support BVS. So I colored up my old black and white pieces:

Colored in manga studio.

Colored in manga studio

It was actually tricky trying to keep my colors simple, so that I didn't take away from the Batman and Superman originals. When I colored in the Superman piece and gave him pinkish flesh tone, it took away from the piece. There were too many colors going and and it was very representational instead of a simpler color scheme.

Anyhow, for the contest, I mashed the two together and made this bookmark looking thing:

Check out the page for my entry here.

The pieces weren't meant to be together like that, but it seems to have worked out. It's kinda growing on me the more I look at it. I'd doubt I'd win anything, but it was fun to create and take part of the buzz and the advertising campaign for the movie.

I think the excitement I have for this movie rivals the excitement I had as a kid for the first Michael Keaton Batman movie back in the 90's! So my hats' off to the marketing people handling BVS!

Anyhow, we may live in the Marvel age right now, but it's okay. The DC fan is definitely well fed and well rewarded in these times as well! So if anything? It's a great time to be a DC fan right now too!
 

The red capes are coming!

The latest Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer is out and it looks fantastic! I was already a giant fan of Man Of Steel and the first teaser trailer for this, so I was extra blown away when they released this online in HD! Wonder Woman looks awesome, Desert nomad Batman looks great, Mind controlled (???) Superman is scary and I really liked Ma Kent's lines to Superman at the farm.

I initially drew this sketch for the teaser, but I kinda got swamped with real life! I rrally like Jesse Eisenberg's delivery of this line in the teaser, so I'm glad we get to see the scene when he does say it in the trailer.

First pass: I liked the face and pose, but I didn't like
the clean lines. I wanted to get a little messier.

I liked the black and white version of this, but I thought
a little color would enhance it a bit better.

Simple colors added in. I added in the text in there
courtesy of Blambot's fonts.

That's it for tonigĥt! And remember, "The red capes are coming!"

The Suicide Squad (some of them at least)

   I'm really looking forward to Batman v Superman. But I was pleasantly surprised that the next movie in the DC universe was going to be the Suicide Squad! After the excellent Batman: Assault on Arkham (which barely has any Batman, but a lot of the Suicide Squad), I'm quite excited to see these guys on the big screen.

SKETCH PHASE

   Drew up something really quickly, I wasn't really focused on getting Deadshot's costume details, or even Killer Croc's design specific... I was just going for something that was fun to draw. I have another sketch of Croc I forgot to scan, but I started getting into drawing the details of his scales. So much so, that I had to stop myself so I could save that 'energy' for the final drawing instead. I usually lose a lot of wind when I redraw the same thing over and over again.

DIGITAL INKS

   I barely do tight digital 'pencils', like I said, I'm very lazy when it comes to re-drawing or tracing over something. Doing that has been good and bad at the same time. Sometimes I get lucky and going straight to 'inks' gets me something passable. Most times, especially on my comic book, it can lead to some issues with composition and storytelling. But if it's a pin-upy, fan arty thing? It's not a problem!

COLORS

   Deadshot and Croc's inks look good enough to me, but they seemed to like in two different universes of finish. One guy is rendered with a stipple kind of finish and the other guy with a looser 'brush'. What can usually save me has been the coloring stage.So I add some flat colors into it, and because I'm a sucker for complimentary colors, I'm using a red and green scheme. The two areas of red I have I split up with Croc's green, and the bursts of yellow from Deadshot. I really cannot get away from the pink-ish red I always use. I still haven't gotten sick of it, though I'm sure it must annoy somebody...

SHADOWS/HIGHLIGHTS

   The last pass I do is to add shadows. But in the case of this, I ended up adding a lot of highlights back in instead. I initially started coloring with Photoshop. I'd use the lasso tool and draw out crisp shapes and filled them in. As I got to coloring more however, I found my usual way of coloring wasn't really a fit with what I inked. So I went back to Manga Studio and started coloring the highlights and shadows in with a brush and left it more messy.

   That's it for today! Bring on the Suicide Squad David Ayer!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel age and my Inktober 2014 (Part 2 of 2)

Sigh. Another post being triggered by the general public's blind hate towards anything DC and extreme love for anything Marvel.

So a couple things just happened. A leaked cellphone video of the Batman v Superman teaser went viral on the internet and everybody took to their soapboxes to make sure everybody else knew it sucked. I was really looking forward to seeing the IMAX trailer, and even though I tried to keep positive, the relentless barrage of hate on my social feeds was intense. The HD version was soon released and even though I was holding off, because I wanted to save it for when I went to the theater, all the hate about it that day, made me buckle and I decided to watch it.

IT WAS AWESOME.

My inner fan was rejuvenated! But it definitely made me realize just how right I was about people hating anything DC. I thought I was just paranoid, but everybody wants a Marvel movie. It wasn't over yet though, the hate train was still running.

Just recently, there was a video claiming how much better The Man of Steel movie would be with color added back in. I disagreed with the video in general (and again, it's an example of people wanting to "Marvel-ify" the DC movies). It was revealed that the people who made that video also dimmed the original version a little in their 'comparison screens' to make their re-colored work look better. That's a good example there of DC hate, if anything, but what made it worse was everybody's willingness to share that to everybody and jump on the hate.

I'm not sure what DC/WB could do to try to get out of the negative PR hole they've been in, but as a fan, it's very hard to take when everybody's favorite pastime is poo pooing on the things you love.

Anyway. End rant! Back to Inktober part 2!

Sketch phase for Pluto. I liked how his face
came out on the bottom right, but the final sketch didn't need it.

I love Astroboy. Osamu Tezuka's most popular work is one of the driving influences I have now as I make my own comic book. There was no way I could let an inktober go without calling attention to one of my all-time favorite creators.

Final inktober sketch for Pluto.

I didn't stumble across Shotaro Ishinimori's Cyborg 009 until way later, but I think it was one of the driving books to get me moving on drawing The Bomb Squad. I really loved his very simple panel compositions and the empty spaces he loved to put some of his establishing shots in.

Sketch phase: I got the pose dialed in pretty quick, but I had no
idea how to treat the background. There was a lot of experimenting and tracing over that went on.

Final inktober Sketch for Jet of Cyborg 009.

Next up, I return to my DC fan roots with a sketch from the CW's Arrow series. I didn't really expect much for CW shows even though you'd think as a DC fan I would. I skipped that whole time with it's Smallville series and almost skipped over all of Arrow until, I stumbled on it midway through season one. What a great show! What's sad to me is that even now 3 seasons in with 2 really solid previous seasons, people in general still don't seem to watch it. Anyhow, this sketch was my bid to let the world know just how cool of a show it was!

Sketch Phase: I just went straight in, but a few things about proportions and
relationships of shape within his face were not working for me.

Final sketch: I like how his face turned out here and he didn't seem so
 elongated this time around. I kinda liked how some of the shadows were working better.

 Another opportunity presented itself to wave my DC nerd flag at everybody: The Constantine TV show was about to start up. I wasn't really that well acquainted with the character, but I did like what few stories I read him in (his landmark battle with cancer storyline was great!). I like where that show was headed, so it's kind of disappointing when NBC didn't order more episodes for the first season.

Final Inktober Sketch. He's a little stiff, but the brush I was working with was starting to fray
and started to make all sorts of interesting marks as I drew.
The drybrush effect would carry onto my last few inktober drawings.

I never really watched Teen Titans, but I recorded a few on cable just out of curiosity. What few I did get to watch though was great! The Red X was a no-brainer for inktober! Armed with my scraggly drybrush technique, this sketch was a lot of fun to do!

Last, but certainly not the least in my inktober run was the Spirit. I ran across a majority of Will Eisner's work when it was being re-printed by DC. I have a few prints from the Kitchen Sink runs as well, and I have the whole Darwyn Cooke run as well. His "Life on Another Planet" is one of my favorite books. I'd like to think that his work has some influence in my work, but it's definitely not in a stylistic sense. I'd like to think it's storytelling-wise, but to be honest, what Will Eisner does with storytelling, acting, panel placement is so advanced and above what I could do, I'd be lying to myself if I thought it did!

I had a LOT of head sketches of the Spirit before I arrived at this last sketch. I'm not putting it into this post, because there's SO many that I can't be bothered to scan them all in!

I wanted to do a simple nice drawing of his face, but I just couldn't get it right, no matter how hard I tried. I think the issue was that I simply wasn't interested in drawing his face, but I didn't realize it. When I decided to draw an full body action shot, the drawing went by much quicker.

Anyway, that's it for Inktober! More of my own work in the next post! Before I go, I'll leave you with a screencap I made comparing the original Man of Steel footage I took and the VideoLab (the company that tried to "color correct" Man of Steel) corrections.

I have no idea why ANYONE would want that puke green color in a movie for grass.
But apparently the Man of Steel haters want that.

It's not easy being a DC fan nowadays. But still the neverending battle continues!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel age and my Inktober 2014 (Part 1 of 2)

Seems appropriate for me to start posting up my inktober drawings now (as well as ranting as a DC fan). Daredevil just hit Netflix last week and EVERYBODY is going gaga over it. I mean literally fans crying watching episodes because it's SO good (I'm not kidding). And while I think it's pretty well done (I'm about 5 episodes in), but I still think Arrow and the Flash are tops and Gotham with it's imperfections and quirky-ness is still more engaging. But again, that's my opinion. By the way, I'm re-watching the Arrow pilot again and it's absolutely great!

Anyhow, a few Marvel zombies took to the DC fan pages and started bagging on all the DC shows. And sure, just like my opinion they can have their own... but really? I'm not going to Marvel boards bagging on Marvel movies or shows now am I?

A couple of posts ago I remarked how difficult it has been to maintain my... composure... in this Marvel age since I'm a pretty hardcore DC fan. Anyhow, you can read my rambling here, but I essentially said the answer to combat negative fandom is not with hate but with positive fandom. In my case, it's by posting up DC fan art or liking and sharing DC comics, shows or movies that I like. It's certainly a lot more productive (and it feels better) than going into a flame war with another fan (or usually in my case, a marvel zombie)!

So when Inktober rolled along last year, and everybody was drawing their favorite Marvel heroes and villains (and a ton of rocket racoons), I decided to let my own voice get heard (And this is ironic since the guy who started Inktober seems to be a Marvelite himself and has drawn Rocket Racoon professionally!)

So of course the first drawing had to be Superman! And if you've read or seen any of my posts of Supes, you'll know that I have always had a hard time figuring out my 'take ' on the character.

a few bad head sketches of Supes. With coloring assists from my daughter.

The final inktober sketch. This was the only face I was actually happy with.

The next sketch I did was of the shadow. I had a very specific drawing in my head that I simply could not 'draw' out.

That first sketch was almost right, until I got too lazy to try to redraw his left hand.

The initial sketch felt like I was inking too tight. I messed up his left hand's placement and really got too lazy to try to fix it. So I just started to keep sketching and trying to get loose. Along the way, Darkseid and Mister Miracle showed up! 

Final Shadow sketch.

 I was introduced to the Shadow when through Frank Robbins' run when the Shadow was with DC. That run is still one of my favorite books. Fantastic art and fun stories. I felt I had to try to honor that with this sketch.

Stemming from the previous ink sketches, I was trying to figure out my next sketch.

The final Martian Manhunter inktober sketch.

The next sketch I thought I was going to do Mister Miracle for sure. But I was just unhappy with it. I did like the face shape so  tried to apply it toDeadman. But I didn't like that either. However J'onn J'onzz fit the bill! It's a simple drawing but I liked how it turned out.

Final Mister Miracle Inktober Sketch 

Maybe since I've been sketching and re-sketching Mister Miracle previously it made it easy for me to do this one. As a kid, I was exposed to Mister Miracle and Jack Kirby and I had absolutely no idea how to react to it! In fact, his drawings kinda weirded me out! I suppose reading about a character called Madame Evil Eyes and her Satan's Club would do that! But I still kept going back to his work! Jack Kirby's DC work is one of my favorite things that he did. Of course all of his Marvel creations are fantastic (pun intended), but his DC work was just absolutely nuts!

That's it for this post. I still have a few more inktober drawing to post up, but it's time to call it a night!

Jeans and T-Shirt Superman

DC had shown some images of Superman's new costume a few weeks back, and I have to say, I'm quite excited to see what stories they'll do connected with his new look. I actually like Jeans and T-shirt Superman from Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics, so it's nice to see it come back with a few changes.

 I started off with a pencil sketch. It's basically a riff of of the original cover to Superman #1.

Pencil Sketch

As I went to digital inks, I noticed that his leg and also his hand just weren't working out so good. I was able to shorten his leg, but his arm/hand needed some help. So I bring out the trusty iphone and selfie my arm in a few poses. This one won out:

Photo Reference of my arm

I digitally inked it in Manga Studio and found a cool brush for the speed lines and I messed with Mange Studios perspective tool to keep the action lines going in a uniform direction. That point-perspective tool, by the way, is really awesome.

Digital inks in Manga studio

I slapped on some colors to get Supes to pop from the background more.

Final colors in Manga Studio

I'm finally starting to get a little more comfortable drawing Superman! I need to jump start my artistic juices again though. I'm hitting a wall with my output for my own comic book lately.