How I paint comics - The Techno-Templar #25

Here's page 25 of my 100% watercolor, sci-fi and surreal graphic-novel along with its process and some tricks!

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If you want to read the previous pages, just visit my profile and scroll it down!

Before everything, the story-board: I use this only between me and I so of course I don't need to be extremely accurate. But you can see that the thought bubbles and the gutters are there and that their are done digitaly. It's because I sketch a lot of panels very roughly, scan them and open them in Illustrator. It's easier then to manipulate them, change their sizes, flip them etc... than if I would have to erase and start again on paper.

Thought bubbles must be integrated in the action as the way they are arranged can change a lot in the meaning of your panel. Aswell for the gutter which is where the reader's imagination actually really comes in action. The gutter has a very strong power in sequential art. It actually defines the time which is one of the most difficult thing to illustrate. For instance, when no gutter is used, it creates a timeless scene.

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Now the board is prepared, the paper is dried and tensed. The outlines of the panels are inked. I can start penciling!
I often use the two tiers rule, so here, that round thing is placed in the higher left tiers and the weird machinery in the lower right tier.

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So, this is how it looks once almost completely inked. It's already pretty neat (hehe) but I still leave some space for more coming details.

Another close up of an inked panel.

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The watercolour is already well engaged and you can see that I work conjointly with the previous page, as they are from the same sequence (except the two lower panels).

In this panel I used a combination of cobalt turquoise and light anvers blue, adding more yelowish stains the closer we get. Started with the zones where there are shadows, avoiding the lit ones. First with very delayed paint (lavis), then more and more layers, accentuating the terminator with (the very spot where the light stops) payne's grey.

You can see that I try to not get paint in the gutter but of course there's always a little bit of splatting in. I have seen people sticking tape in or using masking fluid but in my case, I simply clean everything with Photoshop after the scan. I think in a way it could devaluate the original but at the moment, that process of hidding the gutter was too laborious!

You might also see that during the process, many brush lines look a bit clumsy. But it is the amount of others that come over and over that bring texture and a sense of breathing things (even yeah, if here we're talking about a biotop of nano-based structures and beings).

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Let's have a little look from the whole ... it's almost finished!

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Hey I hope you enjoyed this! I repeat myself, but if you want to read the previous pages, simply follow and scroll down my profile.

If you are interested in the physical book(s), this is where you should head http://www.haedre.bigcartel.com

For more art, visit my official website http://www.haedre.com

Committing to comics is hardcore dedication job, consider supporting me through http://www.patreon.com/haedre

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