From the concepts to final art, I thought I'd post the full process of a Looney Tunes comic cover I did! Recently, I was going through my archives and saw I had pics of everything that would show the full process. I'm a process junkie myself and thought it might appeal to others out there.
Here are the original 4 concepts I came up with when I was asked to create a cover for the Looney Tunes comic series. This is an "icon" cover that features The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Above, is the scan I made of the original thumbnail sheet and this is what I sent to DC Comics who then sent it to WB Global Publishing for approval. There was no specific art direction so I had free reign to come up with fun scenarios. I did light, loose pencil sketches to plan things out and did a quick ink over my penciled lines. Once I erased my pencils underneath, I added some gray magic marker to show separation and add some depth. It's a simple trick to help sell your rough ideas as thumbnails are smaller, but it helps as it keeps the elements of the design from blending together and looking flat.
Not all my thumbnails are this tight. In fact, these are super, super tight! More often, my cover concepts are loose enough to play with or add to them. This was kind of locked down from the beginning.
Here's a photo of the thumbnail sheet itself which I created to make the process quicker. I made a little comic page grid (which is to scale) and printed them 4-up on cheap copy paper. I saved the file and can print them out when I need them. Great for doing comics and covers as they have all the specs on them that the full comic art boards have. I also have a digital version I created of the art boards as well for full digital art.
Once the concept was picked and approved, it was time to move to the full-size pencil art!
I do my roughs on cheap 11x17 copy paper and label them at the top "ROUGH". The black border is to spec and was done with a black Sharpie marker. Then I enlarged my small thumbnail to full size and printed it out. I take the printout and place it under my clean bordered sheet of paper. I use my light table to work over my thumbnail as I pencil and refine the image at full size. Again, these thumbnails are really tight, so there wasn't much more I could add or change to it on the fly. Once I have it penciled, I take my Micron Pens and do a quick ink to the rough. When I do this I really refine and lock in the final image. It seems like an extra step that is not normally needed for comics, but with any licensed work I try to make my art clean and defined.
Below are a scan of the final rough cover art and a photo of the actual sheet. The scanned art is what I send back to DC Comics who then sends to WB again for final approval. I'm showing the photo of the rough as you can see the pencil lines under my inked ones. The end benefit to doing all this is that I also have something else to sell at a convention or to a collector later on.
The art is approved! No changes! Time to move to the next step and do the final inked art! Again, I use my light table and place the rough art underneath a clean sheet of DC Comics Cover Art Board. I tape my rough behind the art board to hold it in place and then ink the final art. This is why my final original inked art is so clean when you see them in person as you don't see any pencils underneath! One of the major benefits to working this way is that the digital clean up after scanning is practically zero. This is a huge time-saver!
Side Note: if you do ink directly over your pencils on an actual image, and wait for the ink to dry, then you'll have to erase the pencil lines underneath. When you do, even softly with a kneaded eraser, you'll pick up some of your ink along with it causing some fading of the line in spots. You then have to go back over and re-ink the areas again to freshen them up. Been there, done it, don't like doing it.
In a sense, I am retracing my art yet again, but now I'm adding the line depth to it. Every licensed property has its own look and you have to match the inking style to it. The Looney Tunes inks are the same as Scooby... in case you were wondering.
Below is the scan of the final inked art and the photo of the actual art itself. When I scan the final inks, I don't scan as an RGB because it would pick up any white paint corrections I might have to make and all the blue grid lines of the DC Art Board would be seen. I just want the black line art only. I always scan the art at 600dpi for my archives. There are times, not always, where I would scan an RGB version just for my personal records. There is something about seeing it "all there" as it were.
Once the art is all scanned in, I then do any final digital tweaks to the art I might see that got picked up in the scan. When I'm happy with it, I save the file and then have to format the art to DC specs. I take the art and resize it and then place it into the final art file that DC's Production Department provides to all artists. You resize the art to actual printed comic size and make sure it all lines up in the grid lines of the Photoshop file.
You then save the art as a TIFF file and label it to their labeling specs. In this case, the file was labelled "LT Cv219.600_BW".
LT stands for Looney Tunes, Cv219 means it's the cover for issue #219. The 600 means the file is 600dpi and BW means it's in Black and White. If it was a final colored file it would be "LT Cv219.600_COLOR".
Here is the formatted file looked if you printed it out (without my blog info, naturally).
Just for giggles, I took a low-res screengrab of the formatted art file in Photoshop so that you can see the blue grid lines. You can see the everything lines up in the live area, trim, and bleed lines. The top third line shows where the logo and other cover elements would go. There is a little mark on my little thumbnail grids as well, because you have to plan everything out in the beginning so there are no issues later on.
Originally, I planned to have have the Road Runner say "Beep Beep" but we really didn't need it. There is also plenty of room if DC wanted to add a blurb or burst of text somewhere if they wanted.
Once the file is formatted and saved, you then upload the file to DC Comics via their file server and you are done. Contact the editor and send them your invoice! If I'm not coloring the image, I will load another page (or contact the colorist) with any notes or color ideas or effects I was thinking of.
To move comics along, we work in a pipeline assembly. I prefer to color my art if I can (if time allows as you get paid for it, naturally) but I'm not adverse to working with someone to keep things moving. I worked a lot with Candace Rock (formerly Candace Schinzler-Bell) who worked for Heroic Age Studios before she went solo. She worked for DC as a colorist on Scooby and Looney Tunes for a long time and would color most, if not all, of my DC covers starting around 2010. She did the final colors for this cover!
After I loaded up the final art to DC, I would directly email her my thoughts and any notes on it. I would sometimes send her the art file as well to save her the time of downloading it from DC. The pipeline at DC would move slower at times and we'd get a jump on things by just working directly.
The benefit to working with someone you can trust and like is that you can keep moving on a project or go on to the next to keep a workflow going. Candy was a huge help to me on several projects over the years! Sadly, she (like many) have moved on in life and stopped doing comics as the comics industry was changing and the work just wasn't as plentiful as it once was.
Below is the final colored file she emailed me to see what I thought. I'd make a comment here and there but she never disappointed me and I was usually always fine with everything she did. She delivered the final colored art to DC's production where the cover elements were added by a designer. Then the editor and art director would look at it to make sure it was all good and then sent it to WB for a final, final approval.
Remember, I said I made notes that I loaded up with the file to DC directly? That was so the designer on the back-end would know to add "OUCH!" to the Coyote's sign. Keep everyone in the pipeline when you can! It's important!
Here's the final printed cover when it hit the comic stores! I'm quite happy with it still! I hated that version of the DC Comics logo though. Thankfully, they went back to the classic DC Comics "bullet" logo!
Finally, for those that made it to the end, here is a pic of the package of original art I sold to a collector! This is the benefit of working on actual paper! It's one-of-a-kind art and it's original production art! You have something to sell and make money on the back-end of a low paying comic industry. I sold the thumbnails, final inks, and a signed printed comic to a collector (with a Certificate of Authenticity that they got it from me)!
Sometimes I will sell the rough pencil art and final art separately. Most high-end collectors just want the final inked art (as it's what the general public sees) and a copy of the book. Some collectors like the rough art with all its flaws, paste-overs, and creative energy. I sold the rough art and a signed printed copy of the book (with a C.O.A.) to another fan.
If you have to work digitally, it's fine and I have... but I usually always try to have something on paper if I can. My Strawberry Shortcake work was all digital, but most of the roughs and preliminary work were all done on paper! I may be "old school" but I still love physical art!
