JL8 #264 Production Journal Update 09

Alright, I just finished up pencils on page four of the upcoming update. We're slowly getting there. In the meantime, I'd like to continue offering some behind-the-scenes content. Today, I'll be doing a step-by-step breakdown of how a panel gets pencilled. Buckle up, because this is gonna be a bit of a long ride.

1. Obviously, it all starts with a blank panel. Naturally, I have my script and a thumbnail of what I want the panel to look like, so I'm not entirely making it up at this stage, but I still need to figure out how to translate the idea I have in the thumbnail onto the page. I begin by VERY roughly and lightly drawing little circles in the panel which help me visualize where characters will be placed.

2. Once I have a rough idea of where the characters will go, I generally like to letter the panel before anything else. This way, you run less of a chance of not having any room for the actual dialogue. Sometimes people get carried away with drawing and fill up the entire panel, and by the time you need to letter the panel, there's no room left for the words! I do my best to avoid that by lettering at this stage (unless it's a pane with very minor dialogue--a few words at most; in that case, I may save lettering until the end).

3. Here we literally letter the dialogue into the panel. Nothing too fancy.

4. Once the dialogue is present, I go to the points where I've "roughed-in" the heads of the foreground characters and drop what I call anchor-lines. These will help me later when I need to start adding background elements in perspective. Also, the lines sometimes help to make sure my characters aren't skewing any which direction. I naturally draw with the paper cocked at an angle, and sometimes if I'm not careful, characters can come out looking like leaning towers of Pisa.

5. Here, I drop in what I call an "anchoring circle" for the head of a character. A lot of people draw rough circles from which they build on for a character's head. I generally use an actual circle template just to keep everything scaled correctly, as I don't often trust my freehand attempts; one character's head may look fine as a 1/2" circle and then another character is bobbing around with a 3/4" circle head and everything gets slightly out of whack.

6. Once I've drawn the anchor circle, I begin to roughly build out from the face/head downwards. I work fairly loosely at this point because there's a possibility that I've misjudged the proportions or some such thing and need to erase and scale the character down to fit the panel properly. That wasn't an issue in this instance.

7. After the first important character is roughed in, I'll finally commit to a proper horizon line. I know in this shot that I want the two foreground characters to loom large as the background recedes behind them, so I placed the horizon line around their calves.

8. Here I start roughing in all the remaining foreground characters--in this case, just Diana. I continue to keep it rough just to make sure everything's on the up-and-up. It's a lot easier to erase and redraw these light and loose shapes than it is to erase a fully realized pencil drawing.

9. Now that I'm comfortable with the foreground elements, I'll try to get a rough approximation of the background. As such, I'll utilize perspective to figure out scale, distance, angle, etc. 

10. Once I've decided that I feel good with where all the rough elements are, I'll begin to tighten things up, one at a time. Here, I finish the pencils on Diana, as she's the foremost element of the panel.

11. Now that Diana's penciled, I finish up Clark. Because Clark has his arm behind Diana, it's helpful to have her done first, since it helps to relate Clark's position to her.

12. With the foreground elements penciled, it's time to move onto the background. In this scene, there's a picnic table that some of the kids are standing near or sitting on, which I consider the anchor element. As such, I like to draw in the table itself as much as possible first, because then I can add the kids around it at the correct scale.

13. With the table finished, I'll start adding the background characters in earnest. The process is generally the same as it was above: I'll rough in their loose shapes and once I'm comfortable with how they look, I'll go back in and tighten them up. I'll also begin adding other background elements as I see fit at this point, like the rough outline of the fence and bushes nearby.

14. With the foreground and background characters fully penciled, it's just a matter of finishing up the varying degrees of background elements. In this case, there are mid-background elements such as the other picnic table (on the right) and some deeper elements like the fence, bushes, and trees that are beginning to take shape.

15. Finished pencils! I'll go in and add deep background elements until I feel the picture is complete. I'll also make any touch-ups as necessary, such as retouching Clark's speech bubble, or add any little details that I didn't tackle earlier in the process, like the cracks on the blacktop or blades of grass. From here, I repeat the process for every panel on the page, and once that's all done it's on to inks and colors!

I hope you all enjoyed this look at the penciling process. I apologize if it was a little too long-winded for your tastes, but I figure it's better to give too much than too little. As always, I welcome any questions or comments. I'll continue to keep you as up-to-date as possible in regards to the new update, as well as my upcoming convention appearances: Keystone Comic-Con in Philadelphia on Sept. 13-15 and Spa-Con in Hot Springs, Arkansas on Sept. 21-22!