Artistic Progression

As a comic book writer, I'm at the mercy of artists, in more ways than one. Let's face facts: the reason people like something like ArmorQuest or The Hedge Knight is because those artists are A-MAZE-ING. Was the writer any good? Maybe, but if the artist isn't . . . people aren't as likely to give it a chance.

So I've been very, very pleased to see the last two volumes of TimeFlyz are in some very, very good hands. TimeFlyz is a very important story for me. It has a lot of "educational" components, it has a fun time travel action adventure, and there's an emotional climax to a sort of deep character arc.

The artist is Eric Merced, and he's been putting some sneak peeks of his artwork on book 8 up on his Twitter-stream. One of the things he did was put the progression of a panel, from sketch to finish. I asked him if I could share his work, and he agreed.

When Eric included a comment about the artwork, I've included it here. The character he is drawing in this is Darchon, the evil time traveling spider and he's using Manga Studio to draw it.

Step 1:

Eric says: "How about some process stuff like me drawing a character from the graphic novel? Ready? Let's go."

 

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Eric says, "already into the inking stage. This has replaced the whole Penciling stage in my work."

Step 5:

 

Step 6:

Eric says, "Despite the fact I may sketch something out a certain way, I usually end up changing it in the final."

 

Step 7:

"I use red to lay in details. It's better visually and allows me to draw under the actual drawing."

 

Step 8:

"A little bit of resizing."

Step 9:

"The final version. This is how I work on every panel in Manga Studio"

Eric likes sharing process type things like this a LOT. If you are or want to be an artist, his is a great blog and Twitter-stream to follow.

Eric on Twitter.

Eric's blog.

As soon as I know the release date for TimeFlyz books 7 and 8, I'll let you know. Books 1-6 are available now . . .

~ Ben