Peia Page Preview (Patreon)

I haven't really talked about process in a while but it's kinda been evolving to this point. When I'm in an ideal working mode, not tired, got plenty of time, and time ahead of a solid deadline, things get done pretty well.

This particular page preview looks like a good way to sample each of the important stages in the rough art. I increased the opacity on the sketch layers for example purposes. I normally draw the lines with a VERY faint sketch layer something around 7-8% opacity.

The Blue layer is the original rough. I'm primarily making sure every element I need to tell the story is there. Staying almost as rough as stick figures, it's enough if both Gunwild and I can read it. I'll do exaggerated and very simple expressions. A lot of the storytelling is figured out here, and staying rough I can space things out accordingly. Then I place in the dialog, making sure there's enough space for the art elements to breathe.

The bottom left panel I think, a view from a higher angle might have told you more about where their location is, but it wasn't as important as getting a good look at Ashley's face and full expression. Most of the time, I'm finding I prioritize faces and character expressions over backgrounds or costumes. I'm maybe more like a Manga because of that.

The Green Layer came second in this example. Using perspective rulers, I roughly place in background elements like floors and stuff. I've gotten into trouble by skipping this stage when I really shouldn't have before. But having it here ultimately seemed to save time AND provide a good basis for where the actors are placed around each other. A lot of times, you really don't need or even WANT a detailed background. And cheating perspective can be very important to showing all the elements you want.

The Red Layer is a pretty traditional "pencil" layer like you see in most comics. But since I know I'm going to ink it myself, I have less interest in creating stuff that would look good on its own. Now I think of the red lines, like making "notes" or suggestions for myself to use later. I use a very thick pen for inking, so I can often go well outside my own red lines. What I try to do now is use the red pencil as a kind of "thickness guide." If I can't see anymore red, I might be making the lines bigger than they should be. And by extension, the element I'm drawing becomes bigger.

One neat trick, and you can see it pretty well here in this example, is using circles to roughly gauge how close or far away you want a person. I tap the screen with a circle brush about the size I want, and then build the face around that. The nice thing about heads, is that for the most part, people's heads are kinda the same size almost no matter how big or small they are. And the sphere of a kid's head is kinda the same size as an adult's. Knowing this, you can use different size spheres to figure out characters distance from each other.