“We Want You!”

This may be the finest page of comic art I have ever constructed. I am extremely proud of how this piece came out because it signals a great turning point in the style and candor of the comic. Art should reflect the intentions of the writing of a comic, and that is exactly what this page does.

Two years ago I came up with the idea for this page. Steve wandering the streets and coming upon a piece of zombie propaganda that influences his life the way a good piece of propaganda effects the lives of those it is intended for. I was a senior in high school the year that September 11, 2001 occurred. I was just 18. That year I saw a good deal of my classmates come on the receiving end of the propaganda and national fervor for war.

This is a moment in which Steve is faced with a calling right at the time he needs one.

Process:

When I was looking for propaganda influences for the poster I really couldn’t decide on the appropriate influence for the final propaganda piece until I came accross Dean Cornwell. His paintings had that Norman Rockwell texture to them and I knew immediately when I saw “They’ve Got The Guts” that this was the piece I needed to emulate in the poster I was creating.

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Next I needed a San Diego street shot. This actually took a while because my pages are oriented horizontally. I wish I was at the point in my artistry where I could come up with these scenes out of my head, but I’m not there yet. I am not sure who is the photographer of this specific piece, but the street artist behind the piece is named Robert Montgomery. Interesting story about these pieces, check it out.

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Below are some brief glimpses into the three week long process of constructing this piece. From pencils to inks to digitally painting the final comic.

Process

Pencils: originally I was composing the final image to look a bit different than it ended up coming out.

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Starting the inks (A close-up)

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These two Zombies unfortunately did not make the final cut for the finished page, but I love them anyway!

Flats – I knew, almost as immediately as I finished flatting it that if the image was going to pop like Cornwell’s it was going to need to be repainted. All the inks had to go. 

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This was the very beginning of the digital painting process. Each section like this took me between 45-90 minutes to complete. My approach was to use a solid edge standard photoshop brush with the opacity ranging in between 18-60%. Once I would make a stroke with the brush I would use the eyedropper tool to grab the mixed color and then spread a new line to mix down the colors into each other.

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Close-ups of the final painting at full view.

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This is the finished painting which, as you can see, is very closely tied to the original composition (Lighting, color palette, etc.) of Cornwell. At some point I can see this single piece being used for a print.

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I would love to hear questions about the process. Let me know what you want to know in the comments. I am an open book!

Song Of The Day:

Of course it is “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. What else would it be?

Till next week!

-Patrick

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