The second page of issue #4 has been inked! I wrestled with the set up of
this page and it was a little complicated before, but fortunately I was able
to simplify it and actually tell a lot more story but with less panels. If
you want to see more behind the scenes stuff, check out the youtube episode
for the process video and me giving some love to Jack “The King” Kirby.
Just in time for his birthday too! Happy Birthday to the king!
Here are the final colors for the first page
of issue 4. And just like that, I feel like the fourth issue is already well
under way. As long as I play mind games on myself to keep moving one 'foot'
in front of the other, I am hoping to keep up a steady output of pages until
I'm done.
The page is all in monochrome; so the main
thing I do is make the focus have the lightest shade. Sometimes, the lightest
shade is all around the panels, but for the most part it seems to be working. So
panels 1 and 2 is on the dollar sign. 3 and 4 go to some of the dollar sign, but
also the face and the hands holding the bag and gun. Panel 5 is mostly on the
gunshots. And lastly, panel 6 is mainly on the 'radio signal' coming from the
walkie-talkie.
I like blocking out large amounts of blacks in my work to
direct the eye and to make my compositions, especially in the inking
stage. I don't think I primarily think in color when I'm making my art
(at least not nowadays). So I make sure that everything looks good and
is working at the black and white stage. By the time I'm coloring, it
can still kinda work without too much color or rendering going on.
For the Bomb Squad comics, the colors are very simple,
but I to use it to direct the reader's eye to what I want them to
focus on. Because it's simpler, I'm also able to move a little faster
in finishing off pages. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to
noodle the page too much. Because adding more colors might actually
work against the simple style that's already been set.
If you want to see more details on a part of the process,
here's the Comix Rant YouTube episode:
