WIP Wednesday! Putting Something Together... (Patreon)

So this will be a single-panel comic. I have taken a template for a 3-panel comic and drawn right across the gutter of the top two panel to create one large panel that takes 2/3rds of the page. Usually, for a single-panel comic I will do this, or, combine the top two panels of a 4-panel template.

Since these get scanned in as pencils, I then make a layer and do my inks, and eliminate the bottom layer with the pencils, so the drawn-over lines and sketchy pencil marks disappear, leaving me the clean (digital) "inks" seen below:

 I already have an idea what I want to do with the background, so with the pencils I just had vague, scratchy references but with the start of the digital process, I fill it in with solid lines. Of all the steps in the comic creation process for me, the "inking" and clean-up is probably the longest and most tedious.

 Then, of course, comes the Paint Bucket tool. This is very satisfying to me because the changes in the art are so dramatic-- color! Color Everywhere!

 More "paint bucketing" and cleaning up. To be honest this is almost as time-consuming and tedious as the inking phase, because I frequently need to clean up artifacts where the pain bucket failed to fill. But because the color is such a dramatic step towards completion it doesn't annoy me as much.

 Again, the patchwork application of the camouflage. It is kind of humorous when I have to pause and save overnight and come back the next day and the uniforms look like some quilt that Grandma stitched together from scraps around the house.

 The shading, highlights, final details... it is ready for dialogue now. This will post here in Patreon on the 17th, and on the official site on the 20th.

Until later!