I'm always curious to see what the roughs / pencils look like before the page gets finished. How defined is your image when you start inking? Do you finish your pencils or just leave your page raw and rough? What do you omit from inking and save for the color pass? Share the roughs / pencils of your favorite pages side by side so we can see the differences!

I'll start! I've omitted dialog from the final pages to avoid spoilers.

Page 17


Page 15


Page 8

I'm a big fan of “How I do it” illustrations, like these (beauts, btw) & wish more people would do them. Ever since I saw the Joe Giella/ Carmine Infantino ones in the 1st ‘Flash’ annual, early ‘60s ( yes, I’m old B-) )
I've inserted a few pages, in similar fashion - my art's never been, nor intended to be, as crisply finished as yours though. I wish more people would do it

http://little-black-dress.thecomicseries.com/comics/180/#content-start

http://thebutterflyeffect.thecomicseries.com/comics/630/#content-start

Nice, I like how freeform your process is. Do you work on one layer or many?

Nice work! I'll see about uploading some….

Full process of making an old page of Pinky TA. I don't work like this anymore.

TedGravesArt wrote:
Nice, I like how freeform your process is. Do you work on one layer or many?

Haha…no. I'm too old and stupid for layers. Well maybe not stupid, but at my age, I didn't have the patience. I did try, but got exasperated pretty early on …and I wanted to get stuff up & going before I got even sicker.
I was on dialysis, when I first got twisted brush & played with it… already post-transplant, when I started posting up.

B)

Ozoneocean wrote:
Full process of making an old page of Pinky TA. I don't work like this anymore.

Blimey ! No, good job. That looks like a long, tedious process, Oz !

Kinda like this. The first two steps are the easiest. The third takes the longest (especially if I don't like something or need some major fixes from step 2).










(I use layers including multiple temporary ones during the process. Some pages have even more for weather effects or lighting. I save every page in this format so if anything needs editing, it's an easier fix – like moving a speech balloon or changing a color or whatever. I make a lot of mistakes.)

Here's how I do a typical page these days. My process changes over time. Sometimes I evolve my pipeline in order to be more efficient, and sometimes I mix things up just to try something different.


thumbnails


mass development


pencils

inks (by Arabella Salvini)


scene and lighting setup


lighting solution (includes values and reflected light hues)


final

Wow, I am just impressed at how talented you people are!!! Happy WIP Wednesday :)

I draw digitally. Here is an example where I have not deleted all the sketch layers, so you can kind of see the process :). I usually start with an EXTREMELY rough sketch and then create a new layer and refine it. Depending on how complex the drawing is, I try to get it somewhat refined before inking. The first picture in the image below I would feel comfortable inking, but I still refine stuff as I ink. After inking, I put in flat colors and then the background. I used to do the background last, but I don't any more since I feel like sometimes the background and foreground don't really vibe well, and I like to take colors from the background to use for highlights and shadows if needed. Then I add the shadows and highlights.

Wow!
Really nice and great process from all of you. I tend to stick to a process, but when I found a better way to do something I adjust my process.

First the rough sketch for the pose (a messy one):


Next, the more detailed sketch. Here I add almost all the details:


Then the lineart. I like to use thin lines and then change the color from black to a dark brown, so it can blend better with the colors:


Now the flat colors. Sometimes I just add random colors and then adjust them:


Finally, the shading. Lately I like to use more purple and pink tones for the skin because the peach/brown colors for the skin look really boring to me (although, they look more realistic):


I use a lot of layers, ranges are from 50 to +150 depending on the art. For comic pages I use less, but still a lot. I don't show my page process here because I use a long vertical canvas and my comic is in B&W

@Avart I tend to do the exact same method, except I did not have the “skeleton” sketch shown (the one that involves getting the proportions correct, getting the composition down, etc). I can only work with a few layers at a time because I am always drawing on the wrong layer…

L.C.Stein wrote:
@Avart I tend to do the exact same method, except I did not have the “skeleton” sketch shown (the one that involves getting the proportions correct, getting the composition down, etc). I can only work with a few layers at a time because I am always drawing on the wrong layer…

The confusion that led to me giving up on attempting layering B-)