From Pencils to Inks (Tom)

Every once in a long while on one of my various social networks (usually Instagram), I'll post a before/after of some the Switch work from my pencils to the finished inks. I've gotten comments remarking on how "loose" my pencils are.  Do I always work that way? Nowadays, I'd say yes for the most part. But it didn't use to be that way.  At the beginning of my career, I'd pencil so anally/tightly (perhaps a poor choice of words LOL) that you may as well just do a "straight to colors" copy of it before it goes to print.  With that method, the inking stage not only became incredibly boring (essentially you're replicating the drawing, line-for-line, twice), but the art lost some of its dynamics and stiffened up by the end of the inking stage. In other words, it lost whatever energy and looseness it once had during the pencil stage.

In the middle of my career, I remember working alongside my pal Doug Mahnke during a crazy deadline.  Sometimes he'd come over and we'd pull late nights on literally several pages at a time.  Sometimes he'd be inking right on top of his loose pencils, and I was telling myself, "This is why I need to always get better drawing!"  One particular deadline during Green Lantern, I actually was helping him finish some of his layouts as we'd pull an all-nighter.  We'd swap pages, and I'd do some black spotting, some contouring, then swap and he'd do some detailing, etc.  Talk about having your back against the wall and being thrown into the wild!

Contrast that to today: I'm a better and more confident artist, and in turn I'm much more relaxed than my younger self.  I'll rough in just enough to layout the page, and then do necessary guidelines.  I'll draw just enough information so I'm not guessing too much--but largely my inking stage is the drawing stage.  It not only saves me time, but it also saves my sanity and keeps things non-redundant.  The bonus is that I feel this process keeps more life and energy into my lines than my previous method of drawing by carving out pencil lines tight enough to make grooves into the paper.

Enjoy these before/afters from The Switch, heading to you this winter :)

Crom, Nagengast, and half of Vladimir Putin

Lover Boy losing his sh*t

Lover Boy again, he can't seem to keep his saliva in his mouth huh?

The Switch

In contrast to the above examples, this is fairly tight (for me)