W.E.D. - Process

***Download for FULL BIG view. Its big, ye have been warned***

In 3 years of being a member of DeviantART I believe this is my first step by step process pic. It's about fraggin time.

My process isn't that special or unique, whatever it takes to get the job done really. Now that I think about it, this piece was a bit different from my normal approach...

1. Obviously this was the penciling stage. This was the first time I've drawn most of these characters in years so it was a fun experiment adapting them to a newer "fresher" style, if you will. Normally I lay down a quick blueline sketch of the image then jump straight to inks but I've been using a standard pencil lately these days.

2. Onto the inks! I love inking my own work, as selfish as it may sound, its true. It gives me the feeling of being in control of the whole image. Things were adjusted in here and blacks were filled in. I think the inks really pulled this particular piece together.

3. Color Flats. Not many people do this when they intend on having someone else color the picture but I wanted to give Rico a sense of where I wanted it to go. I dont have the most faith in my final colors but I think I did a decent job of setting a tone and mood for this pic. You'll also notice I make a few adjustments in Photoshop like gave Noxious (the guy in the front) a foot and did a few color holds myself.

4. Final Colors. Rico, like I've said before, knocked it out of the park! From the minute I started drawing this I had him in mind as the colorist. He took my flats and my inks to another level that I certainly would not have been able to. Im extremely grateful for his contribution and over all BADASSERY.

Now for the tools!

Paper: Canson XL Recycled Bristol 9x12 (the green cover). This paper is fantastic, one side has a rough almost Vellum like texture and the other side is very Smooth. I've been enjoying the textured side lately, it absorbs ink like Bounty paper towels. Beautiful! Im also using an 11x14 pad for various comic pages, you can see more here: [link]

Pencil: Standard 0.5 mechanical pencil. I swear by mechanical, even with blue led. The pencils I use are pretty basic, nothing too crazy I think its ridiculous to spend a lot on something that you can buy at Rite Aid for $2. From experience my pencils have all been extremely reliable and durable, I get them in the kids art supply section at target or wherever.

Inks: Copic MULTILINER SP set. These pens are fucking gorgeous and make me feel like Im wearing big boy underwear when I use them. This is the set Im currently using: [link] I use every size pen in there, the 0.1 is very nice, for anything thinner I use a Prisma 0.05.

Colors: I did the flats in Photoshop CS3. Im not sure what ~whoisrico uses but Im going to step out on a limb and say its some form of black magic or wizardry.

Well there you have it dudes. Probably the single most long winded post in my measly history on DA. I hope it was informative and incredibly boring, I fell asleep 3 times while typing it.