Power House Gang: Week 6

The Power House Gang story continues -- and we finally meet the "PHG."  My character sketches for the trio can be seen below the published strip.

We're getting ready for a trip back to the Twin Cities for SpringCon and a visit with my daughter and grandsons.  Hoping to see many old friends, too.  Finishing up a Scary Monsters cover and starting another Phantom strip today.

THE PHANTOM "Power House Gang": Week Five

The tale of the Power House Gang continues.  A few extras can be seen below.

 I "pencil" the strip in Manga Studio.  Below is a very early rough -- I'm just figuring out the storytelling and composition at this stage.

 After shooting some quick reference photos using Photobooth (with me as the model -- hey, I work cheap!) -- to check pose, drapery and lighting -- the drawing continues. I'm concerning myself with the characters here, knowing the backgrounds in this strip will be fairly simple.

 Here, ready for me to print on bristol board for inking, are the finished pencils -- backgrounds added and drawing tightened and revised.  Lettering and borders finished as well -- all digital.

After inking, this is scanned, the blue dropped out, and then colored in Photoshop.  See the first image up top for the finished results.  Hope you're enjoying the "extras" I post here -- if so, please leave a comment.  Thanks!

The Phantom 3-4-12 from pencils to color.

 Digital pencils for today's Phantom Sunday strip, with lettering and borders added.  Drawn in Manga Studio.  Below, the same art has been turned into "bluelines" to be printed on bristol for inking by hand.

 When inked, the art is scanned and cleaned up -- the blue pencil under the inks dropped out.

 Below, the final page for print and web -- colors added digitally by Tom Smith.  Since I now have physical originals for the strips (the previous Sundays by me were all digital), I'll be auctioning off the art on eBay as they are published.  The first auction will go up soon.

Today's Phantom -- Nomad takes a dive!

Today's Phantom Sunday strip -- from rough to inks to final colored strip.  Pencils and inks done digitally in Manga Studio.  The blue pencil rough is a small screen capture -- sorry I don't have a bigger image for that.  Click on the other pics to see them bigger.

Previous Phantom Sunday artist, the late Eduardo Barreto, figured out a new template for the Sunday strip that allows for the taller vertical panels you see here -- particularly appropriate for the jumping off the cliff sequence.  This would not have been half as effective in the standard horizontal panel format. 

Today's Phantom -- work in progress pics.

My first few Phantom Sunday strips were drawn digitally, using Manga Studio and Photoshop.  For this page, I took a few screen shots of a selected panel as I worked, so I could share a "behind the scenes" look at the process.  Using the pencil tool, I sketch out the scene in blue.

The inking tools in Manga Studio are amazing -- and look and feel like the real thing -- but without the chance of spilling the ink bottle!  Of course I inked the Phantom first!

Background now inked -- penciled loose -- so much of the drawing done in the inks.  I changed the gun from the pencil stage, so he's not just reaching for it, but has it in hand.

 Finished panel, with blue pencil layer dropped out.

The whole Sunday page partially inked.  Some of the pencils still unfinished/rough here.

 And the published version -- inks done -- lettering done in Photoshop (ComicCraft fonts) -- and color by Tom Smith.  The next several pages were all done this way.  Eventually, I switched to printing the blue pencils on bristol board and inking by hand, so there is a piece of original art, rather than just a computer file -- but the digital process allowed me to hit the ground running and get the strip (which had fallen behind) back on schedule.

New Adventure!

Okay, I'll admit it -- I've not paid as much attention to this blog as I should have lately.  But I do have a rather snazzy announcement to make.  As of January 29, the art on the Sunday episodes of The Phantom newspaper strip will be by me!  Paul Ryan will continue to draw the daily strip (as he has for a good many years now) -- but the Sundays are mine. 

As a long-time fan of Lee Falk's  "Ghost Who Walks," this is a dream assignment for me and I'm thrilled to join writer Tony DePaul and colorist Tom Smith in continuing this classic feature.  I'll post links where you can see the strips once they start appearing.

I can't show you any of the Sunday strips yet -- but I can show you this quickly knocked out sample drawing I did, which caught the attention of King Features.  I'm drawing the strip a little "grittier" than this -- and while that's a good looking wolf -- I must admit it doesn't quite look like Devil -- but I'll make sure he looks right when he next shows up in the strip.

My original Batman Adventure samples weren't quite on model, either -- but that didn't keep me from getting it right once I was on the books -- and I stuck with that for eleven years.  I wonder how long I will draw The Phantom...?

In other news, I'm illustrating the next book in Max Allan Collins' "Jack and Maggie Starr" series for Hard Case Crime.  Glenn Orbik has painted the cover -- but I'll be doing the same comic-style panel chapter headings as the previous series entries.  More on that when we get close to publication.

Max and I are also hammering out the details of the Ms. Tree reprint series and new graphic novel slated to come from the new First Comics.  This has been a long time coming and we want to make sure we do it right.

In personal news, we are a few weeks away from adding a new member to our family -- and you can be sure I'll announce the details here when baby arrives.

For now -- see you in the funny papers!