Sir Kyla (kylavanderklugt) wrote,
Sir Kyla
kylavanderklugt

Flight Formation

 

Flight 8 was released last week! Some of the other artists have been posting a bit of process for their comics, so I thought I'd join in.

I'm pretty new to comics, so I can't say I'm any sort of an authority, but I can show you how I tackled this particular comic, and I hope someone will find it interesting! Or momentarily diverting. Not incendiary, at the very least.



 
Here are some of the earlier sketches of the boy and the beast. I'd already jotted down some basic elements of the story, but without getting a visual feel for the characters, I felt like a lost little lamb with no way forward. Baa.



In the very earliest sketches, the little snake-y beast was a little sphinx-y beast.




 
After writing out fragments of the script in various impractical places (receipts, bills, my hand), I wrote out a more-or-less final draft, with some preliminary thumbnails alongside.



Even to me, these hardly make sense anymore.



Entirely relevant and essential to the story. Possibly.


I consider this to be an - ahem - highly legible and perfectly practical thumbnail (I've heard some voices of dissent). Mostly these were for my own benefit, and I was able to get feedback on the pacing and layouts from the rest of the Flight crew!

When I drew my first Spera comic, I did the roughs in pencil. This time I decided to try going digital. It worked out for me here, although I'm sure there are people out there who'd tell you there's some sort of rule against this, haha. My own rule is to never listen when someone tells me not to do something, until I've tried it myself first! (Er, I'm talking about art technique, here. So don't try goading me into exploring a toaster with a fork or something, you scoundrel.)
With all that said... I went back to pencils for the next comic I drew. Live and learn.

And lo, it was inked. Looking at the plain inks made me a little nervous, since the compositions depended a lot on value and colour. I almost always do early colour studies, but not, apparently, when it really counts.




The colours were all done digitally. I painted the sky and the snow and flatted everything else. Then I popped on some texture - I use hand-painted bits of acrylic and various papers I've scanned over the years. For this comic I painted some new textures, though.

There! If that seemed suspiciously straightforward, it's only because I don't know how to visually convey all the useless self-deprecation, second-guesses, and general angst, haha. But I don't need to, since I'm sure we've all had a cup of that now and then. COMRADES IN ARTS!
It would have been interesting to post the process for some of the later pages, since they went though some changes from thumbnail to finish, but it's a short comic and I don't want to spoil it. :)




And while I'm on the subject of process, here's a bit of concept art for a new comic I've been working on.


More chain mail! And I didn't even choose the fantasy setting myself this time, I swear. Not that I wouldn't have, if it were down to me. Just sayin'.
Tags: comics, process
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  • A New Year of Comics and Monster Balls

    Happy New Year, everyone! Every time the holidays roll around I get this itchy desire to draw that tried and true image of people sitting by…

  • And whatnots

    Catchin' flies. So hey, I never mentioned here that Flight 8 is now in stores! But it is! You can even buy it through the magic of the…

  • Spera Vol. I & NYCC

    We’ve made oblique mentions of it and we’ve made ephemeral tweets about it, but it’s high time it had a journal entry of its very…