Taking a minute between drawing Roche Limit pages to post something here.
This is Page 11 of X-Files: Year Zero #1 (IDW) that came out last week. It's also the first page from my half of the story (the 1940's story of the first X-file.)
Mat Lopes (the colourist) came up with this really nice blue centric colour palette for this page that I just love. I like working with Mat, although he probably gets really annoyed at my constant colour guides and changes. I think he said I was definitely the most involved and detail noticing artist he's worked with. ha.
I drew this page 3 times at different sizes until I decided what I was comfortable with. I ended up finally drawing it and the rest of the issue (and series) just a bit over print size. It's a size that Zach Howard (Artist of Wild Blue Yonder) showed me.
This book, even the issue I'm working on now, has,been filled with 6 panel pages, so it's a cool challenge to find different ways to layout pages. For this one I went with the uber stack (that's my term for 5 tiers, that I just invented), not sure I could do 6 tiers, but maybe that's something I should do for issue 3 of the series. You gotta know when to try something different and when to just go with 6 even square panels that I associate with some of Alex Toth's work, like his Zorro stuff. It does help that my story takes place in the 40's so I fully embrace going for a look that suits the period.
I was looking at a lot of Kevin Nowlan at the time and tried to be in control of line weights and all that stuff, but at some point I just grabbed a brush and went to town. Should have put some clouds in that first panel sky, but I like the openness of it as well. oh well.
One thing I've learned with drawing comics is just to do your best in the time you have. Make sure the storytelling works and move on. You'll have the opportunity to tackle similar shots in different ways down the line.
Okay, back to work.
--vic
