All of the pages to date have been done on 12″x16″ Arches cold pressed watercolor paper with the actual art at around 10″x14″. Since I don’t do too many preparatory sketches before diving right into the image at its final scale, a lot of erasing and reworking takes place at the penciling stage. So, to save the wear and tear that this would cause on this expensive paper, the pencils are done on translucent vellum that is taped over top of the final watercolor paper. Once I have a pencil drawing that I happy with, I’ll use the vellum to transfer it to the watercolor paper. Below is the first stab at penciling.

Here, you’ll notice that the sequence of images is different from the final version. This drawing was abandoned because I felt that I was repeating myself by having a close up of the boys face to open the page. I had the idea to have me coming out of the bathroom door from page 25 as ‘panel’ 1 of this page with the second image being the thought balloon of the boy’s face. I approached the next sheet of vellum with this plan and after working out the first two ‘frames’ realized I could have myself standing in front of the refrigerator in ‘panel’ 3. Here’s the second sheet.

As you can see, having the first two images in this way allowed me to use the third panel to both establish setting as well as further the plot by showing me about to open the refrigerator door. I also liked the symmetry that this created; the image of the boy in the thought balloon ‘framed’ by the two drawings of me. In the next row, I knew I wanted to build up some tension before opening the fridge door as well as parallel that action with the cracking open of the scrit exoskeleton. In this case I used a similar symmetry as the first row. The thought balloon in the middle is flanked on either side by the ‘real world’ opening of the fridge. The leftmost vignette shows my hand about to grasp the door and the angle of the lines of that handle are mirrored in the lines of the handle in the rightmost ‘frame’. The idea behind this is to create a sense that these two hands and handles imply a pull in opposite directions that emphasizes the action of the boy’s hands as he pries open the shell.

A lot of readers are probably a little bewildered by some of the thought balloons that feature an old man/cyborg, a female android and other characters not previously introduced. These little non sequiturs are thrown in to enrich the feeling that we are privy to the images that flash before my mind’s eye but they also serve another purpose. They help introduce characters that I intend to introduce later in the story. When we learn more about them in the future, the reader’s experience of these earlier pages will be deepened.

Okay, on with the final row. Here we have another look at the little boy as he strains to open up the scrit shell followed by a shot of me opening the fridge door and a thought balloon of the boy being slightly thrown back. These last ‘frames’ complete the action of opening the fridge door/scrit shell; the “CHUK” sound acting as the sound effect for both. This is a strategy that I have used in other pages as well. The sounds of the real world fill in for the sounds of the imagined realm and sometimes the imagined sounds stand in for action in the real world. As an example of this, look at page 23 where the “Klolp!”, “Klilt!” and “Klup!” of the boy flicking the limp scrit arm stand in for the sounds of me walking up a set of stairs. Even the action of the boys fingers are like those we make when we act out walking with our fingers. It’s this sort of collusion between the imaginary realm and the ‘real’ world that I am playing with in this chapter.

I think that pretty much covers the penciling stage! See you again tomorrow when I show you the next step in the process, Inking!

Welcome to my behind-the-scenes look at the Process! This is the very first phase of creating a page. I’ll call it the ’script’ and thumbnail stage. I use the term, script, in quotations because my writing is itself very sketchy and likely to change over the course of the page’s development. The following are the relevant pages from my Moleskine wherein I have a very rough breakdown of the events of page 26.

This scan shows the first list of what’s going to happen. Originally the list was ordered 1–7, but I played with the numbering to find what I thought would be the best order of images for maximal effect. At this stage I was happy with the idea of having the page open with me approaching the fridge in an image that would establish the setting in the kitchen (this really is my kitchen, by the way). The next image of the boy’s face is understood to be in a thought bubble. Next I have an image to, “set up [my] hands about to open fridge” that parallels the following panel that, “[sets] up hands about to pry open scrit underbelly”. After we get in close on my face, I have a note describing the fridge opening with the sfx, “CHUNK!”. This appears in the final page as, “CHUK”, which is, as everybody knows, the sound of a fridge door opening and the sound of a scrit exoskeleton being pried open. This causes what we see in the final panel 7; the boy’s face being spattered with blood.

This page shows another list of images that were planned to make up the story of page 26. Many of the items here are the same as in the previous page but appear in a different order. You’ll notice that the sfx has been changed to, “CHUK!” I think it was the clarity of the steps in this list that made me feel comfortable enough to start working out how this script would look. That’s what you see happening in the two incomplete thumbnails at the bottom of the page. Both are abandoned to pursue another idea in the next thumbnail. At the very bottom of the page I tried to make clear what the goal was for this page and the next. In the case of page 26, I have the goal as being the, “boy about to crack open skrit [sic].” For page 27, however, I have listed the goal as being the, “fridge opened” followed by what looks like a grocery list of bread, juice and cold cuts! In the interest of full disclosure, these are the contents of my fridge but why I included them here is a mystery even to me! Okay on with the next page.

Okay, here’s the final page with two more thumbnails and some more notes. These notes are basically reiterations of stuff from the last page. The thumbnails are a little more complete than previous sketches with only the last one mapping out the whole page. That apparently was good enough to start on the full size drawing as there are no other page layout sketches. So I think that’s it for this first round. Tomorrow I’ll show you the Penciling phase and show you how that helped get us a little closer to the final piece.

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

Now here’s the finished page! Stay tuned as every day this week I will take you through the process of creating this page from start to finish! Tomorrow’s post: ‘Script’ and Thumbnails! See you then!