The Artist’s Process 1 1

[Latverian Tourism Board]

There was an interesting conversation in the blue lines vs blue scans thread about some modern artists, and how they produce their work. The discussion was going over digital work vs hybrid digital and pen/ink work, and it occurred to me that there might be an interest in having a broader discussion on various artist’s processes, so let’s see if that’s the case. Oh, and not just for modern comic artists, but for all time periods.

I will start it off, but I’d like this to be open to everyone, so it won’t just be me going through all the artist’s processes. Also, I don’t know them, so that thread would totally suck.

So, do you have a favorite artist that you’re knowledgeable about? Are you a professional in the comic industry? Are you an artist yourself? Please, feel free to share. If you’d like to talk about general artistic practices from different time periods, or how an artist’s process has evolved over time (ty, Vodou), I think that’d be appreciated, too. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Latverian Tourism Board

[Latverian Tourism Board]

My addition to the thread will be about Michael T Gilbert. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with him for a while during the 2014 SDCC, and pick up a few prelims. I’m no expert, but I love Mr Monster, and I caught the artist in a chatty moment. He was nice enough to explain his process using the prelims, and it was very interesting. First, he’d start with something like this:

A pretty detailed prelim, with his initial idea for the page. Next, he looks for what improvements he can make, or what might not be working quite right. He tapes tracing paper over the regular paper, and works out his ideas like this:

Now, instead of cleaning the blade, it’s left bloody, and Mr Monster’s arm is at his side. Gilbert’s also changed the monster’s head a bit, homing in on his final image. But he still wasn’t done:
 

Gilbert decided he wanted the monster head impaled on the blade. Darker, bloodier and more striking for a splash page. This was the image he worked from for the final comic (sorry, the issue escapes me, or I’d post that image, too). A three layer prelim.
 

Considering he is also a writer, he has a similar process for dialogue:

Overall, a pretty intricate process, and I was able to snag an example of each.

[vodou]

21 minutes ago, Latverian Tourism Board said:

a broader discussion on various artist’s processes

Great idea, will be informative to many. One huge caveat: we're talking artists here so they can and do change things up a little or a lot at any time, nothing is set in stone, "how it's done" today has zero bearing on yesterday or tomorrow...per se

 

[Latverian Tourism Board]

Just now, vodou said:

Great idea, will be informative to many. One huge caveat: we're talking artists here so they can and do change things up a little or a lot at any time, nothing is set in stone, "how it's done" today has zero bearing on yesterday or tomorrow...per se

 

Fantastic point. Showing artists evolution would be great, imo. I’m going to add that to the first post.

[Rick2you2]

Howard Chaykin uses an unusual process these days on his independent books. He draws the main figures on separate panels, generally having assistants do the backgrounds, and then assembles the panels as pages in Photoshop. My understanding is that he is not allowed to engage in panel assembly like this on his DC or Marvel book work.

Frankly, I'm not thrilled with that process. He could be very creative in his panel designs, and using the Photoshop approach can severely limit this. I spoke to him about it, and he understood (he also seemed to miss adding them), but he pointed out that this method is quicker, and for artists, there are business considerations (time is money).

He remains one of my favorites.

[Latverian Tourism Board]

11 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

Howard Chaykin uses an unusual process these days on his independent books. He draws the main figures on separate panels, generally having assistants do the backgrounds, and then assembles the panels as pages in Photoshop. My understanding is that he is not allowed to engage in panel assembly like this on his DC or Marvel book work.

Frankly, I'm not thrilled with that process. He could be very creative in his panel designs, and using the Photoshop approach can severely limit this. I spoke to him about it, and he understood (he also seemed to miss adding them), but he pointed out that this method is quicker, and for artists, there are business considerations (time is money).

He remains one of my favorites.

That is a very unusual process. Obviously, it speeds everything up, and get him more pay, but I’d imagine it kills OA resale value. I wonder how much it bothers comic artists when they have to settle on making the art they want to make a few more $.
 

I dig Chaykin’s work, too. Thanks for sharing.

[Rick2you2]

14 minutes ago, Latverian Tourism Board said:

That is a very unusual process. Obviously, it speeds everything up, and get him more pay, but I’d imagine it kills OA resale value. I wonder how much it bothers comic artists when they have to settle on making the art they want to make a few more $.
 

I dig Chaykin’s work, too. Thanks for sharing.

These were about $50-100 each. Sometimes, even I need a break from the caped guy. I gave them to my better half, who promptly had them framed for the bedroom.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Rick2you2

[Rick2you2]

23 minutes ago, Latverian Tourism Board said:

That is a very unusual process. Obviously, it speeds everything up, and get him more pay, but I’d imagine it kills OA resale value. I wonder how much it bothers comic artists when they have to settle on making the art they want to make a few more $.
 

I dig Chaykin’s work, too. Thanks for sharing.

Ordinarily, I am not a fan of gore. But, Howard had this piece for sale at one show, and when I saw that first panel, I grabbed it.

 

[RBerman]

Here's a Legion Threeboot page that puzzles me a little bit as to its process. First, Barry Kitson's "pencils" are really more of an ink layout:

Here are Mick Gray's finished inks. I don't see printed blue lines underneath, so I'm not sure exactly how he was working off of Kitson's layout.

Then the other puzzler is this Kitson version, which is on onionskin at the final comic book size. How was it produced (freehand or lightboxed), and what is its purpose? To see how the blacks look at the final size?

[Latverian Tourism Board]

17 hours ago, RBerman said:

Here's a Legion Threeboot page that puzzles me a little bit as to its process. First, Barry Kitson's "pencils" are really more of an ink layout:

Here are Mick Gray's finished inks. I don't see printed blue lines underneath, so I'm not sure exactly how he was working off of Kitson's layout.

Then the other puzzler is this Kitson version, which is on onionskin at the final comic book size. How was it produced (freehand or lightboxed), and what is its purpose? To see how the blacks look at the final size?

That is puzzling. My guess would be lightbox, unless you see whiteout in panel two. Otherwise, what happened to the blackened gap between the teeth as the smile was changed? That could explain how all three were made. Cool pages, too.

[Rick2you2]

20 hours ago, RBerman said:

Here's a Legion Threeboot page that puzzles me a little bit as to its process. First, Barry Kitson's "pencils" are really more of an ink layout:

Here are Mick Gray's finished inks. I don't see printed blue lines underneath, so I'm not sure exactly how he was working off of Kitson's layout.

Then the other puzzler is this Kitson version, which is on onionskin at the final comic book size. How was it produced (freehand or lightboxed), and what is its purpose? To see how the blacks look at the final size?

Are you sure the pencils aren’t just a prelim? Some artists do pretty detailed ones.

[RBerman]

27 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Are you sure the pencils aren’t just a prelim? Some artists do pretty detailed ones.

It's possible. I don't see any pencils (or blueline printout) on Gray's final inked page, but perhaps the ink just covers the pencils completely. I have the previous page in the book, which had a pencil (prelim?) version separate from the ink page as well.

[Blastaar]

I was able to get some feedback on types of blue line and the process itself from the great Sean Parsons! He was open to me sharing his process so here it is. ( I will add that he does have pages currently for sale and can be reached via Facebook  ) 

 

When I asked why sometimes it is clearly visible that ink was over a blue line and other time it was difficult to tell he gave the below response. 

Per Sean

Some of it is the shade of blue people use. I've got original inks of mine over blueline that I won't even try to sell because I picked a color of blue that was too bright and I didn't do enough clean-up of the art before I printed it out. Sometimes a penciler either draws with a crazy light and you have to darken the scan to see the pencils, or they draw super dark and with a soft lead that leaves smudges all over the page. if you don't take that into photoshop or some other program and clean it up, stuff you don't even notice on a scan will ruin a printout. In some terms that might not make sense to a non artist, if you smudge pencil lead by rubbing your hand across a page of pencils which happens constantly as a penciler works, it might leave a light gray smudge on a white background. Say its barely noticable, like 5% gray on white. Barely a shade darker than white. Super light gray now. If you turn that page into blue, and print it out, what was super light gray on white, is now blue. There is no way to not notice that on paper now.

a lot depends on the blue shade you use too. Some blues are light but well visible, but work better on a dark penciled page than a light penciled page. Light pencils read better on a page if they are more of a light mint green shade. Sometimes we will print the pencils out in gray color instead of blue as well. it blends better with the ink and is less obvious than blue printed pencils, but takes more cleanup work when you scan the inks to send to the colorist. I use gray occasionally, because 20 years of inking with my face inches from the page has ruined my eye sight, but I also don't like the gray printed pencils because I think some inkers use gray to sort of trick people into thinking the art is over original pencils. If you see a pinch of gray sticking out, its easy to believe its pencil lead, and if the page isn't stated to be inks on blueline, buyers can be fooled. That's why I try to be sure a buyer knows if he's buying bluelines or original pencils and inks from me.

another factor is paying attention. In photoshop, there is a box that opens that shows you the difference between a color you choose, and what it will look like on screen and another box that shows what that color looks like in print. Those two boxes never look the same. It almost always prints darker. so a nice light blue might look perfect in photoshop, but prints 3 shades darker. most inkers say "oh well" and start inking. I've made that very mistake plenty of times, but paper and printer ink aren't cheap and some guys don't want to go back and spend ten more minutes changing it around and reprinting it again

a page that looks this color  in photoshop...

might print this dark when you print the page out...

 

this dark blue page is a great example of what I was saying about smudged pencil lead ruining a printed page too. It looks fine as you see it here to my eye. But, looking at a close up of the gutter of the page, that is the part of the page between the panels, you can see that what is supposed to be white has smudged lead on it, and it became a blue smudge when the page was turned into blueline. No one took the time to clean it up. When I clean up a small section, clearing up that smudge, you can see how white it should have been. Now imagine holding that inked page in hand, and how awful that blue everywhere must have made that page.

it should have been cleaned up, and it could have been cleaned up and the blue removed enough to not ruin the original art, but at the same time, cleaning it up also makes it harder to make out certain details. So you have to be a good inker not to ruin the art once some of the pencilers details become harder to read

 

I have saved a bunch of preset shades of blue that I choose from with each new job. Some shades work better on certain papers, some work better with certain pencilers. it all depends on if the penciler draws light or dark. I have a lot more colors than these, but most of them are based on some version of one of these colors, but this is a good reference point to start

 

[PixelPusher]

On 9/11/2020 at 1:03 PM, Blastaar said:

I was able to get some feedback on types of blue line and the process itself from the great Sean Parsons!...

Thanks for sharing this fantastic insight. I love this thread! It's not often talked about, but the blueline process introduces a lot of variability. Here's what comes to mind:

• The scan of the original pencils (or digital)
• The cleanup of pencils by the inker
• The specific opacity and blue value by the inker sent to print, and how the printer actually interprets these
• The quality of printer the inker has. Some inkers send their prints off to a local printer for a higher quality and consistency.
• The printer ink levels and print quality settings
• The type of paper the inker has at their disposal. Some 11x17 printers can't handle thicker boards. Some inkers print the blue pencils and blue page lines on the back of "official" company boards. From what I've seen, very few print on the front side with the existing blueline due to alignment issues with a printer. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It was nice that the traditional pencil and ink method simplified things quite a bit, because it was typically on an official company board. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by PixelPusher

[theflashunc]

One approach I've not seen much elsewhere is Dale Eaglesham's work on FF with Hickman and Mounts. Dale just did super tight pencils for each page -- no inks -- and Paul would color digitally based on the pencils. 

 

 

[BuraddoRun]

I recently got a piece by Ryan Stegman in, and I noticed that there was blueline print underneath the pencil and inks that looked like rough layouts. I asked Felix and he confirmed that typically, Ryan does a basic layout on his tablet. Then he'll print that out, do the detailed pencils, and finally ink it. We talked about this type of blueline in the other topic I realize, so it's funny I got a piece that was done like this not long after. My pics aren't great, and the blue is very light, but you can see the blue roughs underneath.

 

[awayne83]

8 hours ago, BuraddoRun said:

I recently got a piece by Ryan Stegman in, and I noticed that there was blueline print underneath the pencil and inks that looked like rough layouts. I asked Felix and he confirmed that typically, Ryan does a basic layout on his tablet. Then he'll print that out, do the detailed pencils, and finally ink it. We talked about this type of blueline in the other topic I realize, so it's funny I got a piece that was done like this not long after. My pics aren't great, and the blue is very light, but you can see the blue roughs underneath.

 

 

This route is becoming much more common nowadays, especially for those who aren't completely digital.

Makes sense, as it seems much more convenient, as well as efficient, to play around with layouts, poses etc without having to go back and erase or whatever

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by awayne83

[ESeffinga]

It's not just the time it takes to go back and erase and redraw. Erasing can destroy the surface of the paper. Just ask an inker like Scott how erasing effects the smoothness (or tooth) of a paper finish and how that effects ink going down.

Same goes with correction fluids or using white gouache, etc. They'll take the ink different than a fresh sheet. Depending on an inker's line, and how delicate the work at hand is, it can make a pretty big difference in how the final product comes out. Not having to contend with surface imperfections is probably a godsend for many. Especially when it means not having to deal with a heavy handed penciller who erases too much, and doubly so when that penciller is yourself.

Edited September 24, 2020 by ESeffinga

[Latverian Tourism Board]

The last three posts are really interesting. They mirror a conversation I had about Nick Bradshaw’s process in my FF #15 cover’s comments. I’ve seen the process you three are discussing mentioned a number of times now. Here’s the cover to show the discussion:
 

FF #16 cover

So, Bradshaw will sketch a couple prelim covers to decide on the image and layout he wants. I copied a prelim image from °Ledge’s CAF account of the Spiderman 850 cover, since he was openly part of the conversation, and happy to illuminate (also, it’s a really sweet prelim):

 
 

Once Bradshaw chooses the direction he wants to go (occasionally by vote on his Instagram account, which is very cool), then he scans in the image, and prints out a very faint red-line copy (I’m not sure if that’s the term, but it’s red and not blue, so I’m guessing there). You can see the faint red here:

 

Then, as you all pointed out for other new artists, he uses pencils for final lines, then inks the piece. It doesn’t show on the scans, but I do see pencil here and there. It seems to me that this process creates nicely detailed and really clean final images. 
 

Thanks to everyone for their input in the thread. It’s been really cool to read! 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Latverian Tourism Board