Beauty is in the details.

I love making signage that helps bring a world to life. In this bathroom scene I wanted to show how the world had changed since the outbreak of book 1 but then much of society had forgotten or moved on from those events. Posters for faith or health warnings are slowly being covered over by graffiti as the population becomes more blasé.

So keep an eye out for signage. I like to drop little hints about the story arc into them. Did you notice that the Divine Order of God is still about? hmmmmm interesting.

Sound effects (SFX) are a big favourite of mine and wherever possible I try to make sure they look part of the artwork. Part of the moment. An addition that doesn’t distract but instead compliments the mood of a frame.

I do this in Photoshop with a hard edge brush (1% Spacing) in whatever colour works best with the scene. The layer mode for this is usually screen or overlay, depending on the desired impact.

Once a page is close to complete and the artwork is flattened, I’ll always keep the SFX on a separate layer so it can be easily moved if it’s placements clashes with any voice bubbles or important art content.

This is where all the super awesome magic happens.

Welcome to (one half of) studio ‘Man Cave’.

For most of my frames I’ll take photos based on my early layouts in order to mock up a template for the scene. Very rarely is the content of a frame based on a single image. For most frames I’ll take 10-20 photos then use 2-10 of the photos taken to compose a scene.

Here you can see a rather unusual cluster of objects in this cropped sample from a page. The top panel shows the photo mockup comprising of a real motorbike, a toy motorbike and a tree. After that, additional content that needs no photo template is also added (digitally, using a Wacom tablet).

Below that you can see the final image after a couple of hours using Abobe Photoshop.

I sketch all pages at a thumbnail size (approx. 50 x 100mm) with a pen or pencil, usually directly onto a printout of the script of that particular page. At such a small scale it’s easier to judge the use of space and how each juxtaposed images feeds into the next. After this I’ll scan the sketch at 300-600 Dpi, import it into Photoshop then resize the sketch to fit a standard comic page template (you can stretch or cut and paste the content as the sketch is merely a guide).

From here I can use layer guides to construct the frames (based on the early sketch), introduce voice bubbles to make sure the dialogue will fit comfortably and then digitally sketch new layout details, notes and content.