In this installment, I'm showing you the first pass at blue line pencils. This part of the process requires the page to be drawn in Non-Photo Blue Pencil. This makes for easy corrections and easier pencil work down the line. The lines and marks made by a Non-Photo Blue Pencil will not be scanned by a copier or scanner if it is set to work with pure black and white. However, it can be seen when photographed or copied when the machine is set to color.
This allows for me to do less erasing down the line. There is less smearing and smudging with the actual graphite pencils, because I probably will not use the eraser much or at all by the time I do the graphite pencils. The blue lines erase nicer and the stray blue lines can stay on the page with the graphite lines, because the scanners will only read the graphite art.
This is where I layout the page on a larger surface. Kyle tells me to focus on the three P's: Perspective, Proportion, and Personality. I take the layout ideas from the thumbnail, slightly improve them if I can, and draw out what I think the final page should look like. It should be noted that the blue line art will have a little less detail than the final pencils because I want to save time. No doubt there will be things that need to be fixed, it's only a first pass.
So, here is the blue line work for page 18 of issue 4 of My Big Break.
A lot of the guess work was already taken out of the equation in the thumbnail process. It is still a 3 panel page. Panels 2 and 3 are mostly the way they are in the thumbnail. I did a perspective shift in panel 1 though. I just felt that "flipping the camera" would tell the story with better clarity. Also, the thumbnail did not have much of a background in panel 3. So, in that panel, I placed them on the roof of the condo complex. I made a little note off to the side for Kyle telling him that I envision a green screen set up to be a part of the background. I made that note because it is hard to communicate something like that without color.
This and another blue lined page were emailed to Kyle. He will then write me back with either revisions to make or with the green light to bring the page to the final pencils.
Let's see how it goes. Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out http://philiphaldiman.com/ to order your My Big Break comics.
http://www.fredthemustardpacket.com/2015/08/how-to-draw-comics-haldi-way-part-1.html
Also, the above link is for anyone who may have missed the first "How to Draw Comics the Haldi Way" installment. In that one I went over the thumbnail process. And, yes, we will make page 18 the focus throughout this feature.
Thank you all for supporting My Big Break and Fred the Mustard Packet.
All the best,
Tommy
