What came before: 1-5 6-7 8-11 12-13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Phew! That was a tough one! I’m glad I illustrated the process behind making 26 and not this one! That would have been a very long and drawn out affair. Stay tuned…only a couple more pages left before the exciting conclusion to chapter 2!

Sorry for the delay, everyone. This page’s been difficult with a number of redo’s. I think it’s going to be worth the wait though. Thank you for your patience.
Joe

So there it is! And now I have to get back to work and start on page 27!

I want to thank everybody who stopped by to read about this project. Your support is what keeps me going. A lot of you that came by probably were new to seeing this webcomic and for that I need to thank the following fine websites for their linking to this blog.

JK Parkin at Blog@Newsarama had this wonderful post:

Tom Spurgeon at Comicsreporter.com posted this notice:

And John Martz at Drawn.ca was kind enough to post this:

Now there’s only a couple more pieces of business left to attend to. First off, if there was something that you found interesting, insightful or irritating, please let me know. I doubled my overall traffic for this site in just this week and that means a lot of visitors stopped by and only one of you posted a comment. I get such a buzz out of hearing what people think that I am going to once again ask that visitors please drop me a line. It doesn’t have to be much. A little goes a long way with me.

Secondly, I would just like to solicit visitors to consider purchasing a T-shirt from Bountee. com or making a donation to me through paypal using the link on the sidebar. Two of my designs are currently the most wanted designs there are so get on over there and check ‘em out! Even here, a little goes a long way with me. I get a very small sum of money from each T-shirt sold but it’s always a thrill for me when I do. If you would be interested in a piece of original art, please consider making a donation of $25 or more for an ink sketch or $50 or more for a full color drawing! I promise you won’t be disappointed whether you purchase a T-shirt or make a donation and receive a piece of original art. Satisfaction guaranteed!

Enough of the hard sell! Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to having you visit again in the weeks to come as I bring Chapter 2 to a close and usher in an entirely new experience for Chapter 3! Thank you!
Joe

So here we are at last, the final step! By this time I’m psyched to have gotten to this phase. Throughout this process, I’ve scripted, thumbnailed, penciled, inked twice, colored and by now I am so relieved to be here adding the finishing touches on the computer. Before I dive right in, I’m going to warn you that I’ll probably get a little technical so hopefully you’ll have some familiarity with Photoshop and Illustrator.

I scan the page for print in CMYK at 600dpi. In Photoshop, I’ll add a levels layer and a hue saturation layer and make the appropriate adjustments. The aim is to find a nice balance of tones as well as give the colors a small boost using the hue/sat adjustment layer. During the scanning process, the texture of the blank paper gets lost to white so to bring that back I take a previous scan of the paper texture and add that as a separate Photoshop layer. I use the layer properties to make the paper texture visible only where the image is white and that restores the look of the actual page. Unfortunately it also gives the page a bit of a yellow cast so I use some more hue/sat adjustment layer(s) to bring the greys closer to a neutral color. Speaking of hue/sat adjustments, the very first thought balloon’s color underwent a number of changes. At first I tweaked the color to be more like the teal color of some of the other balloons but after looking at it again I decided to change it to match the rust color of the balloons from Page 25. You may also notice that the thought balloon in the third image has also been darkened. I used a multiply layer to darken it so that the letters would have enough contrast to be legible.

Sometimes, I’ll adjust the drawing itself. Page 26 was one of those occasions where I added some new elements. For the ‘panel’ where I open the fridge door, I added some shaky lines around the arm and by my head to carry over the shakiness of the other images. Lastly, I added a few more ’stars’ around some of the thought balloon edges. This is what it looked like at this point.

Now that the image is done, it’s time I sorted out the letters. Originally, I don’t think I had any intentions of having any dialog for this page. I was just supposed to straggle over to the fridge with a buildup of tension until I finally opened it with the ‘CHUK!’ sfx. After looking at it some more, I decided to play with some internal dialog to slow down the reading of each image and to make more clear what was going on with me internally. The shaky lines around the character are one indication of some of the symptoms of a low blood sugar reaction but the casual viewer might not pick up on this so I added some redundancy by having the words, “feeling shaky” drawn out over most of the page. The idea was to have the words stretch out time so that it would elevate this mundane moment into something special. That inspired me to actually manipulate the text itself to visually give the cue that my ability to process language has slowed down as well. I did this by first laying out the text in Illustrator and then applying a flag warp to the type. When I was satisfied that they looked good, I copied them as smart objects into Photoshop. Once in Photoshop, layer masks allowed me to create the illusion of the words swirling behind some of the scrit legs and later to subtly vanish into the atmosphere in the second-last thought balloon. This is an important detail because it integrates these purely digital elements into the image. Whenever I see lettering in comic books where the sound effects and text all clearly float above the art, I get a little peeved and taken out of the story. Having no real script for a lot of these pages requires that I keep things open in the lettering phase. Adding the text digitally is therefore a must but it doesn’t have to be obvious! That’s why I take these measures to try and bring the analog art closer to the digital elements. Here are the finished letters.

And there you have it! Phew! It’s been quite a journey to get here and it always feels great to finish up by flattening the image, scaling it and prepping it for the web. Once it goes online, I feel a great sense of relief and accomplishment and then it starts all over again! But before that happens, come back tomorrow for my final post where I thank all the fine sites that have linked to this series of posts and those who have shown their support to this project along the way. See you then!

To recap, I’ve given the thought balloon areas a first go over with color, removed the masking tape and softened the hard edges with a little transparent wash. The next step is simple. I just flesh out these colored areas with more watercolors until I’m satisfied. I do a lot of adding and subtracting of color using paper towels until I have the forms, light and shadow developed. It’s very difficult to be very comprehensive in my description of this phase because it happens very intuitively. I go into the whole thing with a rough idea of what colors to use (as seen in last post) and eventually become more and more specific as I move into the more rendered watercolor and pencil phase. I try to maintain a harmonious balance for the overall page while also giving the individual elements a certain veracity. I pay attention to the color of light hitting the objects (in this case a boy in a cave) and the resulting shadows as well. The more fully rendered page 26 looked like this.

At this stage I think I am ready to move onto the next phase of coloring the image and that is to go in with some colored pencils (or pencil crayons as I’m known to call them). I use Staedler Watercolor pencils as well as Prismacolor Premier pencils. The pencils help bring out some highlights, add details and activate the surface by rubbing them to pick up some of the paper’s texture. A technique I enjoy with the watercolor pencils is to apply the areas with the pencils dry and then modulate them by going over the area with a quick swifit swipe using a wide damp brush. This tends to unevenly darken and saturate the watercolor pencil color and adds a nice effect. There’s a bit of randomness to it that I enjoy. I continue with the pencils bringing out the highlights, deepening shadows and softening the balloon edges. Let’s take a look at the end result while I describe the remaining steps.

When I feel I’ve got ‘it’ with the pencils, I then take the white Prismacolor pencil and begin to add some of the ’stars’ that float around the edges of the thought balloons. I’ll also use other light colored pencils but primarily use the white. In some cases I’ll soften the edges of the balloons as well. Next up, I take process white paint to correct errors from the inking step and to add any bright whites and highlights. I take a small brush and a bit of Winsor & Newton Process White and dab around the edges of the balloons. This adds a little depth to the ’stars’ since this application of white is more opaque than the pencils. These brighter ’stars’ appear closer while the penciled ’stars’ appear to be deeper in pictorial space. Any mistakes in the black and white areas are touched up at this point as well. I seem to remember touching up the corner of my mouth in the third image. The process white can be tinted with the watercolors to add colored highlights as well. Most of the highlights on the scrit’s legs are a mixture of ultramarine blue with the process white. Lastly, I take a light grey Faber Castell Pitt brush pen and add a few lines to describe the rain seen through the cave entrance.

And that’s all of the steps that happen on paper! We’re now ready to scan the page and begin adding some digital effects and letters. Come back tomorrow when I finish this page in the final step, Digital Tweaks and Letters!