WORK STAGES on a semi-recent comic, pt. 2! (Patreon)

So!

In a desperate bid for a recurring feature to fill up M/W/F slots on this here Patreon, here are (most of) the Work Stages on the 3rd and 4th pages of a 10-page story I wrote and drew as a backup feature for a 2016 Deadpool Annual.

Given the opportunity, I decided to mix in the nigh-invulnerable mecha Gothic Lolita from my late, (semi-)lamented 2004 miniseries Livewires, which means that she presumably was repaired after being burnt crispy at the end of the team's introductory story. Yay?

I reverted to old-style layouts to work up the story:

Next up, inks (plus blue pencils, in this color scan):

...followed by colors by my bud Ryan Kinnaird, patched with sound FX (and gravelly word balloons) I lettered myself on a separate layer:

Note that I asked Ryan to delete the black lines of the panel borders as I personally think that all-white gutters look great on a full-color comic, a preference that very likely dates all the way back to Bill Sienkiewicz's painted pages on Elektra: Assassin.

Next up, a guide for the letterer to place the rest of the word balloons:

On to page 4, as GothLol's superhuman strength comes into play:

BTW, this page had a color guide of sorts for Ryan, as this scene was a tad more complex in its color requirements:

And Ryan's colors, once again featuring my hand lettering on an overlay, as I dared not trust the sound FX to a then-unknown letterer:

...and finally, a lettering guide for word balloon placement.

Deadpool's now-discarded pistols were very likely based on the Ruger P89 semi-auto that's appeared off and on in my work since, jeez, Grunge! The Movie due to, shall we say, ease of reference. I didn't bother to ask Ryan for an accurate color scheme on the Ruger(s), though, as I didn't care to screw around with strict accuracy. This disdain for visual purism might also have been due to the fact that there's no frickin' way that ol' Wade would've been toting around a pair of hammer-fired DA/SA pistols last popular in the early 90s; my only possible excuse would be that Wade was paying tribute to the two-tone, stainless Ruger P89's prominent appearances in True Lies and Desperado.

As I'll address down the road in future installments, my ill-fated obsession with ink-based line quality wound up making this short story vastly more difficult and time-consuming to produce than was strictly necessary. Whoopsie! (Also, I'll try to dig up the final lettering images, which weren't immediately accessible as I hastily assembled this series of post.)

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Not sure exactly what content will be appearing on our next M/W/F slot at present, as I'm prepping this post weeks out from its "live date." Let's find out together, shall we?

UPDATE: Ehh, Friday's post will have to be another installment of Distressed Damsels content for the $5+ tiers, which I had hoped to post today but didn't have the time; so, this already-prepped Work Stages post had to be dragooned into Wednesday-slot service.