Panel Process

Hey folks. Time for a new update. I thought I'd show you the process to one of my panels for the Human City mini-comic.

Spoilers: someone gets punched.

Step 1: the Thumbnail

I usually just do a couple quick sketches of what I want to do for the panel. I tend to go with my first idea, because that's how it looks in my head.

Step 2: Acquiring reference.


I used 2 of my buddies that I live with in the Mansion to put this shot together. This is Juan and Henrik. One from Columbia, the other Sweden. (I'll let you guess which one is which). Henrik tends to be my model a lot of the time when I need to draw a muscular dude. He's great with poses and always willing to help out.


Step 3: the Rough
I usually do this in a sketch book, but this time I started my rough on tracing paper.. trying to capture the gesture and movement of the figure. Exaggerating the pose a little here and there, trying to make the body make sense before...

Step 4: Finished pencils
I then trace my rough using a light box onto my bristol board and begin tightening everything up (the figures and anatomy and many little details), and trying to make my pencils as legible as possible. Big areas that I know are going to be all black are marked with X's to save time.

Step 5: Inking
After the pencils it's time to move on to inks. I try to start with problem areas like overlapping. I try to work from left to right working thin to thick lines and finally filling in the blacks last. I put in the zap lines radiating from the fist very last, so that I wouldn't overshoot and accidently run them into the figures.

I inked the guy on the left mostly with a quill (except for those huge blacks which were filled in with a brush) and the guy on the right was done almost entirely with brush. I used Microns with a French Curve to give his robotic arm a more mechanical feel. I may end up throwing some light toothbrush spatter in the smoke texture and some coming from the dude on the left's mouth to make it seem like more blood is flying.

And that's about it!

I have about 3 projects coming up in the near future which aren't Kubert School related, which will be nice. It'll be good to have some actual cash in my pocket.

1 will be a t-shirt design for Osteoferocious, a private commission of the Punisher, and the other I don't want to talk about until it's 100% confirmed.

Thanks for reading!

-Gavin.