Before you spend one more red cent on a comic book owned by a giant corporation, that doesn’t give a rats ass about the characters you know and love, the continuity of the mythos you grew up with, how much they are overcharging you, or even the quality of their books…consider Arsenic Lullaby.
One guy writes and illustrates this book…ME. The characters are mine, the stories are my own, and when you put the amount of time effort and sacrifice building a brand, you do NOT slack off on one single brush stroke.
Often I am asked what “computer program” I use to illustrate it or what kind of tablet or electronic pen do dad.
Here is the “program” I use.
It’s illustrated by hand, drawn with pencil lead, measured out with rulers and obscure micrometer looking devices, and inked with a no.0 brush. No small feat, each page can take up to 15 hours from an idea on a sketch pad to fully inked illustration. There is a reason Arsenic Lullaby looks old school and unlike any other book out there…among other reasons, are the tools I use.
As for the process, I’ll sum it up by saying, the illustration goes from a scribble like this ( don’t you hate went you crumple up an idea and toss it aside, forgetting a better idea was drawn on the back)
and the a couple of more in-depth sketches like these (below). Where the vanishing points are laid out with my adobi illustrator yard stick.
After about 6 of these with subtle differences ( buildings moved around slightly and vanishing points brought in or out to give it as much punch as suits it best) I settle on the best one and it’s blown up and I do the final.
That’s the cover…multiply that skill and effort by over sixty pages. That’s how we roll. There is no book quite like Arsenic Lullaby..because no one does it like this anymore. The corporate books, they cut and paste the same panel several times…slap in backgrounds with no thought to page composition, they crap out 16 pages of story and charge you 4-5 dollars.
Seeing the work that gets put into this book…you can believe I don’t start drawing ONE SINGLE PAGE that I don’t think is worth that effort. The stories have to be worth me staring at them for 15 hours a page…and they are.
You can get on board with the next issue here…you WILL be proud to have it.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/842916453/the-devils-only-friend-graphic-novel
There is a brief video of me explaining and inking a bit of a pages
here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5m9fC_PIhQ
and
here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jxJXoOSp8c
You must be logged in to post a comment.