Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Excitement Alert!

Sorry I done no posts in ages. Bad blogger, indeed. The word is that I'm writing and drawing A LOT at the moment (stuff which I can't even talk about, boo), which leaves little brain room for blogging. But I still love you all!

Now, what's coming out this week? Oh yeah, DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE 394 WHICH HAS MY COMIC STRIP IN IT is coming out. Woo! It's £3.99 from all good newsagents. Buy loads and make me very happy.

In the meantime, here's an honest to goodness guide to process on one of the pages, from roughs to pencils to inks to colours. I hope you get a kick out of it.


First, the roughs. These are done at a5 size and really quickly. I work out where I'm going to spot the blacks and how the page should be shaded. I did these last year and since then I've discovered the joy of thumbnails, so I now do very tiny pages then work up.


The pencils. I start out using an HB pencil and work it out really loosely, then I go over it with a mechanical pencil to get it (kinda) tight. These days, I tend to just ink off the initial rough lines.


Inks. From being a fairly hesitant inker a few years ago, I now do most of my drawing with the brush. Inking is the best bit, for me.

Dan McDaid Doctor Who
Colours. This is probably my least favourite part of the process - I love black and white anyway, and by this time I'm ready to never look at these pages again. But I'm also a control freak, so I really like to colour things my way. What can I do about this? I dunno - maybe drugs are the answer.

Well, that's all! Please comment!

Dan

12 comments:

SRH said...

mmmpig here.

I love looking at process! I am always impressed with the jump in level of finish between pencils and inks for people who are more natural inkers. I have t say though, that even though you like colors the least, those are some slammin colors.

gonna get anything pubbed in the US?

mmmpig aka mmmmmpig aka SRH

WJC said...

This is great! I too love to see the process at work. Is the colour work done by hand or on a computer? Thanks for the 'behind the scenes'.

Dan McDaid said...

Hello mmmpig aka mmmmmpig aka SRH. Thank you for the kind words! Yes, I do have some American stuff coming - me and Glen Brunswick are gonna get a few issues in the can before we unleash it on the world. I've nearly finished issue one - I am slow! But (I think) there may be a teaser for it in the June Popgun...

Cheers wjc! The colouring is done with the computer using a tiny wacom tablet and an ancient copy of Photoshop. Apart from being slow, I am also cheap! It's fiddly work, but it *does* make these pages pop.

WILFREDO TORRES said...

Sweet stuff here Dan -
Very, very nice!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your process, Dan. Gorgeous stuff!

Martin Fisher said...

Hi Dan,

Well done to you. I'm getting some stuff published myself comic wise and I'm hoping to land a DW gig one day in the not to distant future.

Next thing, would be open to the idea of selling one of your DW pages?

Thanks, Martin :)

mattcrap said...

pages look great, Danny!

your damn roughs look pretty good as stand alones.

Dan McDaid said...

Thanks a lot guys!

Martin, I am planning on selling some of my Who artwork down the line... but I'm too sentimental to let it go just yet! However, you can contact me at danmcdaid AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk to talk prices etc.

Anonymous said...

woohoo, this deviant loves your line...


http://www.myspace.com/helgaleena

Federico Milella said...

Dan if the colors are your less favorite part... let me tell you that they rock!!!! :) Really well done and always a pleasure to look at your artistic process, my friend :)

Anonymous said...

Process fascinating, Dan. Colours great even tho' ur not keen.Taster made me go and buy mag. Story TERRIFIC. Keep 'em coming!

Dan McDaid said...

Helgaleena, Fede and Anon, thanks very much chaps! I went into my local comic shop today to get some more copies of this and I was told it was sold out. Boo. But on the other hand, the shop guy (who didn't know who I was) told me it was cos a lot of his customers picked it up when they wouldn't normally, specifically because of the strip.

So yay!