Having survived the holidays, I realized that it was high-time I got back to the business of finishing up the first issue of this book we call “Reformation.”

I spent what little free time I had last week devising new layouts for the remaining seven pages of the book, or pages 10 – 16. Those layouts are shown in thumbnail form below.

Once those were approved by the writer in what can only be described as a hammer-and-tongs battle royal (or, as we like to call it, “calm discussion”), I set about the business of enlarging the layouts to full-size, laying in the panel borders and dialogue and cleaning up the “pencil” work as shown in the next image.

You may have noticed that the word pencil is in quotation marks. This is because I work digitally most of the time now. I still do a lot of things on paper, though. I keep a sketchbook, for instance, where I work out a lot of my ideas first. But, from there I generally jump right into PhotoShop and, using a Cintique, Get right to work.

Working this way has its advantages and disadvantages. On the upside, there is ‘command-z’ (undo) if I make a mistake. My bristol board can’t do that! I also really enjoy working directly on-screen using the Cintique.

The downside is also ‘command-z’ (undo) which allows me to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over a mistake. Although, with the help of Chris Marrinan and Mick Grey, I have begun to break myself of this ugly habit.

But, I digress…

Once the “pencils” are cleaned up, I’ll move on to the “inking” stage and final clean-up. Yes, I “ink” digitally, too, but I am getting pretty good at the traditional ink-on-paper method when I have the chance to practice.

That’s all for now!