Godless Page 3 Color

So I finally finished the colors for page 3 of Godless. The difference between this page and the last 2 is pretty drastic. I'm going to go back and make some adjustment to 1 and 2 to make them match up more. I guess at least it means I'm getting better :)

Tone Highlights

This is a greatest hits of sorts. My favorites from the last few weeks of sketching.

Godless Pages

Here are pages 7 and 8. Only 2 more to finish drawing and then a few more to color before we send it off to publishers.

Sketch Time

These are some quick sketches I did, no pencil drawing underneath, just starting with a thin Micron and then using bigger pens and brush pens. A few I toned using Copic grey markers.



These are more quick ink sketches, the top 2 are toned pencil drawings made using 4B lead and a blending stump, then erasing with the Tuff Stuff eraser.

2 small panel drawings. The ninja one was a lot of fun trying to imply the sea below.



Very loose brush pen sketches and a toned samurai guy.

Mo Sketches

Here are some sketches that I finished recently. The Indian was rendering practice using the Pentel brush pen to do some fine hatching and feathering which I have all but abandoned as of late.

These 3 toned sketches were all done on the same sketchbook page, I just isolated then from the other junk. They were all done with no pencil under drawing, just went from a loose 005 Micron sketch to bigger Microns and then to brush pens and Copic grays. The 2 character on the end are from Godless and the middle guy is from a book I'm working writing now.

Collage Sketch

This is a sketch of a book I have planned down the road. I am still finalizing the sequence of events but I have the main themes and characters all planned out. This is one of the "panel" sketches, original size is probably 3.5" square.

More Godless Pages!

So I finally sat down and finished both the color for page 2 and the inks for page 6. I feel like getting up to page 10 all drawn and up to page 5 colored won't be a problem for the end of May. Looks like June will be submission time.This page was difficult since I had to draw horses and riders at all kinds of angles and I really wanted to give a sense of place with a wide open desert. Not to mention fitting 7 panels, lettering is going to be a challenge.

Page one is Done!

So after two weeks (and a 1.2 gig file) of on and off coloring I finally finished page one of Godless. I spent way to long on it but i figure the first page is the most important for grabbing the readers (and editors!) attention. I might make some small changes here and here before we send it out but this is probably 99% final. I hope you like it.

3 Techniques

I forgot to put up some of these sketches and color experiments that I finished recently. I'm also including a digital layout I did for a story called "Moriarty" that I am working on with the local writer MG Farrelly. I enjoyed doing the drawing completely in Photoshop and it was great for resizing panels and might be a nice change from the traditional pencil and ink Godless.

This is the layout, the story is there are two cops chatting near a police station located at Belmont and Western (only a mile or so from my house actually) when a Semi comes barreling down the overpass smashes though the guardrail and careens towards our doomed officers. Definitely grabs the attention.


This is an experiment with a small pencil sketch (maybe 2.5" square) I spent a half an hour or using a dark 4B lead and smudge stick and then use my Tufff Stuff eraser (my most used tool by far) to erase out highlights and details. I really like working in this method and actually did a 4 page WW2 story in school using the technique. I prefer it for highly detailed illustrative work though as it takes forever and is extremely messy. Anyways, I slapped some flat colors on it in photoshop and 10 layers later came up with this. Oh yeah, it's kinda supposed to be Frank Castle( aka the Punisher).
This is yet another technique I've begun to use recently involving tech& brush pens, as well as Copic grey markers (30% and 50%). This is probably the best example of the technique so far. The color version is a few hours in Photoshop, tried to mainly use the values I already had and only added a strong rim-light and background.

Godless Pages

These are pages 4 and 5 from Godless. I had 4 almost done for about a week and I finally drew the figures and background in the last panel yesterday. I also did a lot of work on 5 yesterday, finally buckling down and inking the mountains and horses. There are a few problem areas but I'm confident all will be well once I get the color done. Speaking of which page 1 is almost totally colored, I'll have it online by the end of the week.