I discovered an awesome tutorial page on the Zeng Zhu Design site. There are many excellent tutorials about design creating and general illustration tips. Very informative.
I tried the silhouette design process tip to help create this monster design. I’m not 100% jazzed about this design but I definitely thought the silhouette process of starting a design was a great new way for me to generate ideas for creatures.
Just to make sure you guys aren’t worried about the status of Kill All Monsters!, I’m posting a shot from a rough page layout I’m about to ink. The plan is to have the whole 250 page she-bang done by May 2012…. for a very special event. Michael and I can’t talk about it yet but we are very excited about the future home of KAM. More info will come much later in the year. Until then, rest assured that we are moving with KAM and the whole thing will be ready for you in 2012!
One of the few panels I actually penciled in pencil. I’ve been doing a lot of the “penciling” of Kill All Monsters on my Cintiq, which, being 100% digital, eliminates the use of paper and pencils and erasers. But, sometimes, the process of drawing begs for something more tactile in nature… so I broke out the graphite and 24lb bond paper. I did a very rough drawing in the computer and then printed it out in blue. I penciled on top of that and then I scanned it in and pasted it into its place on the digital rough layout. I’ll then print it all out in blue and ink over top all that.
Here is a rough digital pencil of a panel from Kill All Monsters!, that I did on my Cintiq. I’ve been doing most of my “penciling” for KAM! this way. It helps speed up the process, as I don’t have to scan in stuff done on paper.
This is what I’ll ink from.
Panel development from start to finish.
First panel is penciled rough. Second one has been tightened up a little with my Cintiq. The last one is the panel inked.
As you can see, the final panel had a few things added to it as I was drawing. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. In this case, I think it works.