Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I'm Really Good At Playing

I was going to write an essay over at GraphicNYC, but realized what I was trying to say worked much better as a comic, and they just posted I'm Really Good At Playing today. Here's a step by step look at the process once I'd scrapped the idea of writing it as a prose essay. First I made a small outline, and expanded that out into a full script. I was basin the dimensions on he biggest size my scanner bed can handle.


I streamlined the script and wrote it out on the back of the illustration board I was drawing the piece on, so that if I was working out at the coffee shop I didn't have to carry the extra piece of paper with me. Because an extra piece of paper can be very heavy.


I was planning on making the comic full color, so I pencilled the piece out a bit more completely than I might normally.


I started to ink and immediately screwed up the first panel - the title - and decided to start over. I tested inks and sizes a little bit on the illustration board first.


So then I re-pencilled the story in non-photo blue, intending to draw it only as black and white line art. I also made the panels smaller and split things up, nearly doubling the number of panels.


Head over to GraphicNYC to see the whole, complete comic.

4 comments:

  1. Great strip! And it is always illuminating here to see your Process.

    I'm not surprised you chose not to express yourself in an essay, but rather with a comic strip -- it is so "you" to do that. To do otherwise would be like asking Tiger Woods if he'd like to play a game of softball.

    -Jose de Leon

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  2. No joke, one of my favourites by you...EVER
    Just based on content.
    Seriously great.
    Thanks.

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  3. Incredible. Thanks for the glimpse at your process. Oh, what I'd give for the penciled first draft that you "messed up." I read the finished comic and, as another stay-at-home dad who draws, I think it was the most I've identified with your work so far. Wonderful job!

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