Judge Parker Process

I thought I would post some of my pencils and then the inks to show the process on the Judge Parker newspaper strip. I pencil as tight as I need and really focus in on the expressions and acting of the characters based on Woody Wilson's script. I also rough in very lightly the lettering and balloons and put them in using Photoshop later. But I have to plan then out to make everything fit in and the eye-flow of the balloons to work correctly. One of the bigger issues for me is that the print version of the strips which run in the paper are really small,ny dad clips and send me copies from the Detroit Free press so I see what the strip actually looks like in the paper.

Strips are run smaller than ever to cram as many on a page in the average paper, this means that everything is smaller from the lettering to the rendering, however the strip also runs on-line on the dailyink website as well as in a lot of newspapers who have an on-line comic section in their on-line version of the newspaper. There the reproduction is a lot better, bigger and in color. What this chiefly means is I have to draw the faces big enough so you can see the expressions well. I don't want to draw a big-head or talking head strip so its always an issue I have to think about as I lay the strips out as I want some environments as well, they are as important as the characters sometimes. The idea I usually work with is to have a good set-up panel that shows everything in a medium establishing shot--and then I can cut in. We need to see Sofie's room and bed and computer at least well once in the strip in a few days worth of continuity.

Most anyone can read strips they missed on-line now, but I don't count on that to cheat set-ups. The other thing I consider very important is choosing the angles of the face to show the expressions clearly, variety of head size adds some visual dynamics as far as layout, make sure the shapes and overlaps are good and to make the female's faces and hair beautiful, appealing and attractive.

The inking is the easy part of the job for me and always has been. I've been working on making the hair more "Dallas" as in the TV show. I started thinking a while back that JP is kind of like one of those 8o's soap dramas like a "Dallas" so I should try and make the women more glamorous in that vein. I also worked on making the hairstyles work more for me. I could never deal with Abby's hairdo. I couldn't get with how it was done, it seemed a weird holdover from the 50's with a 70's twist. So I started looking at real actresses with similar hairstyles to really work it out.

I'm also looking at the great strip artists I admire like Raymond, Drake Williamson and Starr, all of those artists made everyone great looking and had a lot of great textures in the inking. I'm mainly using a Hunt 108 nib, a NO 4 brush and Pigmas markers NO 2, 5, 8, for all the inking, and do any corrections in Photoshop. I use the blacks as simple patterns to focus or hold the eye or lead the eye here. I'm also keeping the set-up in Sofie's room lighter than the much more dramatic lighting going on with the Judge and the suicide jumper in NYC.