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More coloring work, more Carla Speed McNeil, but this time it’s Wonder Woman! (in this sample, lil’ Diana.)
Above is a panel from “Both Ends of the Leash,” a story story written and drawn by Carla and released digitally today. You can go here to see a small preview of the same and where you can check out the whole story.
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As y’all probably know, Issue # 3 of No Mercy came out today, written by alexdecampi, drawn by carlaspeedmcneil and colored by me. It’s hard for me to pick my favorite panel I colored in this issue, but right now it’s the one seen above.
I’m sure most folks have heard that No Mercy issue number 1 has hit the stores and has been getting some pretty good reviews! I had the pleasure of coloring this first cover; all subsequent covers are/will be drawn and colored rendered by Carla Speed herself.
Above you’ll see some basic stages of my process, from the line art Carla gave me, to the blocking in of color, then the shading of major figures and the freeform painting of a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote canyon out the windows and then the final effects, textures, etcetera of the final.
Fortunately, as I was sharing my progress with Carla and Alex as I went, I can show how color can shift as I go, what an underpainting looks like for me and how I block in shading before refining it.
And over in my Patreon, in a post I can’t link to as it’s patrons only, I use this same cover to show how I applied the color palette I developed specifically for No Mercy to this cover as well as how I developed this (or any) color palette for a project.
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Florasaurus Rex
This is the result of February’s art challenge for my patrons at a certain level. (Which, yes, was executed in March. This happens.)
My girl blindly drew “dinosaur” out of the hat. Then, as she was excited by the selection, I asked Taran what dinosaur I should draw and she immediately said “Tyrannosaurus Rex.” (One of her many nicknames in day care was T Rex.)
At a loss for an approach to take with a T. Rex, I consulted the book oracle and got “vines.” That didn’t help, so I tried again and got “carved.” So naturally my mind went to Chinese paper cutting art.
For the flora I chose from the Late Cretaceous period: ferns, conifers, magnolia and dogwood. And instead of the sometimes butterfly I went with dragonfly.
That the Florasaurus Rex should strike a dancing pose seemed a given.
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How Mirka got her Jetpack -or- January’s art challenge at my Patreon.
Once a month, patrons at the $3 pledge level are invited to give me suggestions for something I could draw in an evening. I then put all suggestions on to slips of paper which are then thrown into a hat and my daughter to selects one at random.
And she selected Barry’s request to draw Mirka, the star of his excellent and delightful Hereville books. The jetpack actually came from another request because it amused me to put Mirka in one.
The challenge is there to hopefully entertain patrons plus encourage me to tackle something I don’t normally draw and/or play with a style that inspires me. All within the time limit of two to four hours which is its own challenge.
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A collaboration between Carl Speed McNeil and myself; as usual her with the line art, me with the colors and background.
I will be selling this as a print this weekend at the Portland Comic Con, running January 23 through the 25 at the Oregon Convention Center, along with books of Dicebox and other bits and bobs.
I’ll be sharing my table with the dashing spouse, Kip Manley, who will have City of Roses books aplenty to sell, Joining us will be our daughter Taran Jack, who will have comics of her own making about the Ruby Fairy Fox Princess and even cosplaying as the title character at least one of the days. (She’s also hoping to spot some Steven Universe cosplayers.)
We’ll all be at table B46, next aisle over from 600, somewhat behind Steve Lieber and somewhat across from Kurt Busiek.
And finally I can share the third project I worked with Carla Speed McNeil on in 2014: No Mercy, written (and lettered!) by Alex De Campi.
Announced yesterday at the Image Expo, you can find a preview of the first issue at CBR as well as a nice interview of Alex and Carla on the L.A. Times website.
This is probably the only cover I’ll color for the series as Carla usually creates her own, lovely full color art for them. But I’m happy I got to tackle this one as I had fun free painting the canyon floor seen through the bus windows.
There’s a preview of Carla Speed McNeil’s next Finder story, Torch over at Robot 6, showing a few of the 56 pages I’ve colored for this story so far. The one above contains a couple of my favorite outfits so far.
As these pages release in Dark Horse Presents this coming year, I’ll select my favorite panel from each installment and share some process work at that point.
Finally some of the coloring work I’ve been doing for Carla Speed McNeil for the past several months is beginning to appear, the most recent being the cover for Dark Horse's Free Comic Book Day offering.
The figure line art is by Carla, the colors and painted background by me.
What follows is an abbreviated account of my process for creating the color art.
Read moreThis week’s page of Dicebox is running late. It might be as late as Saturday for reasons I can’t quite talk about— but I should be able to soon.
One thing I can mention is the I have an interview up over at spaces, an online magazine of art and literature. If you were ever curious on how I chose a color palette, I talk about it there.