Thursday, October 16, 2008

More X-9 Process


Above you can see more of my layouts from the current Secret Agent Corrigan story I'm working on. I do the layouts small, then scan them in, convert to non-photo blue and print them out full comic art size on my Epson 1200. This allows me to work faster and to really concentrate on the dynamics of the layout; here you can see how I went back in and tightened up things a bit on the final page. I want to leave some fun, some juice to the inking stage, so I don't make everything too tight, mostly faces and guns. next I'll sling some ink on this baby and post it.

Here is a page I just finished, I added the zip on a layer in photoshop.

8 comments:

Alan said...

Great pages. I love the action on panel two and the change of angles really seems to help keep it pacey. The inks add so much. And zip is a great old school touch.

What's your page rate for breakdowns and inks?

Unknown said...

How long does it take you to do one page from start to finish? I', intrigued as I might adapt you approach for a creator-owned project (namely mine!).

Mike Manley said...

Thanks Alan, the rate is so-so-less than my Marvel/DC rate, but Al Williamson. Sometimes I take jobs for money, and sometimes I take them because I like the assignment or material/subject.

Mike Manley said...

Amin, the time each page takes varies by what i have to draw. In general I try for 2 pages a day of pencils on this job, and one page of inks. Inking is 2-3 hours a page, penciling can be 3-4 hours, but again it varies depending on if it's really reference heavy.

Unknown said...

Mike, cool. Of course stylistic approach helps in speediness. Those inks remind of some original pages Klaus showed me once of Dick Giordano's inks.

Mike Manley said...

Amin, Giordano was a big influence when I was younger and Klaus is one of my favorite inkers because of the bold and textural approach. However, all you have to do is go back and look at Stan Drake and see where it all came from.

Jamar said...

THEY SHOT ME! CALL MY MOMMA!

SteveLambe said...

Solid work, Mike.Look Thanks for sharing your process.