Seaguy 2: Process

I get frequent requests to show the pencils for my artwork and I'm unable to do so for one simple reason - I almost never use pencil. Over time I've gradually moved away from doing pencilled artwork, since I always do my own inks and doing tight pencil drawings seems redundant and time-consuming. Drawing in pen or marker is actually now much more comfortable for me than drawing in pencil.

In the past I did small layouts in pen on regular bond paper, two comic pages per sheet. I found that I would waste a lot of paper though and so recently I've switched to doing my roughs digitally. Below is an example of one of my layout pages, drawn in Photoshop with a Wacom Cintiq tablet:



Once these are complete enough for me (and my editor) to read clearly, I then enlarge them to 11 x 17 standard comic artwork dimensions, turn the black roughs into light blue (done by going into the channels and deleting Magenta, Yellow, and Black) and printing them onto bristol board.

Then comes the tricky, scary, and exciting part - I start inking. Most of the final drawing is done at this stage, I add much more definition and detail to previously vague scribbles. It's risky and I often have to go in and make corrections with white ink but this is happening less and less. It's enormously satisfying for me to work without the safety net of pencil and produce final artwork on the fly. (Long ago I read that Sean Philips worked directly in ink and I was perplexed at how it was even possible - now I know the key to doing it is equal parts practice and confidence). Below is the final page.



Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye begins in April!