Ok, here’s my contribution to The Princess and The Prince! I had a good time making it and I do like the results. Keep reading to see my process, some great Russ Manning Star Wars comic strips, and another King Arthur book I pulled out as a reference.
After sketching around for awhile there’s really nothing more to do but start drawing the comic. EXCEPT, I did made an Adobe Indesign template based on the size proportions introduced by Hazel’s first comic. I roughly placed my text in each panel. I printed that out at around 14in x 7in. Placing that template under a piece of layout bond paper I traced the panels and then started blocking in my characters and settings, at this first pass I’m just interested in having everything in the right place. The next two tracings are done on layout bond paper as well, just refining and adding detail, making sure the characters expressions are correct.
The fifth stage here is the final drawing, 2B mechanical pencil lead on marker paper. To me, this is not at all an exciting phase, it is the most important, but it’s far from finished. I’ll be scanning this into Adobe Photoshop and essentially “inking” it there. While doing so I wanted to show you another resource that I was/am referencing. Below are some of Russ Manning’s classic Star Wars newspaper comic strips from the late 70’s after the first Star Wars film was released. Take a gander.
All in all I think they’re really charming. The way so many figures, settings and words are crammed into such a small sequence. Each strip is doing a significant amount of storytelling but at the same time not rushing to tell you everything and usually ending on a cliffhanger at the end.
Here’s the second Youtube episode, if you’re interested in seeing how I get from the drawing to the final, inked, lettered and valued comic take a look at both of these Youtube episodes.
The third reference source I’d love to share with you is this Grosset & Dunlap version of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, illustrated by Florian, whoever that is. I’m sure they were well known enough at the time to be known be safe with just one name, but unfortunately time has not kept this Florian above “the heap” of illustrators that have come since, some of them named Florian as well. I think this illustrators best work is in pen and ink, the paintings are competent but I only found one very compelling.