Penciller
Encyclopedia
A penciller is an artist who works in the creation of comic book
s, graphic novel
s, and similar visual art forms.
The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout (positions and vantages on scenes) to showcase steps in the plot. In earlier generations it was more common for artists to use a loose pencilling approach, in which the penciller does not take much care to reduce the vagaries of the pencil art, leaving it to the inker to interpret the penciller's intent and render the art in a more finished state.
. Beyond this basic description, however, different artists choose to use a wide variety of different tools. While many artists use traditional wood pencils, others prefer mechanical pencil
s or drafting leads. Pencillers may use any lead hardness they wish, although many artists use a harder lead (like a 2H) to make light lines for initial sketches, then turn to a slightly softer lead for finishing phases of the drawing. Still other artists do their initial layouts using a light blue
colored pencil because that color tends to disappear during photocopying.
Most comic book pages are drawn over-sized on large sheets of paper, usually Bristol board
. The customary size of comic book pages in the mainstream American
comics industry is 11 by 17 inches. The inker
usually works directly over the penciller's pencil marks, though occasionally pages are inked on translucent paper, such as drafting vellum
, preserving the original pencils. The artwork is later photographically reduced in size during the printing process.
Art Adams
begins drawing thumbnail layouts from the script he's given, either at home or in a public place. The thumbnails range in size from 2 inches x 3 inches to half the size of the printed comic book. He or an assistant will then enlarge the thumbnails and trace them onto illustration board with a non-photo blue pencil, sometimes using a Prismacolor
light blue pencil, because it is not too waxy, and erases easily. When working on the final illustration board, he does so on a large drawing board when in his basement studio, and a lapboard when sitting on his living room couch. After tracing the thumbnails, he will then clarify details with another light blue pencil, and finalize the details with a Number 2 pencil. He drew the first three chapters of "Jonni Future
" at twice the printed comic size, and also drew the fifth chapter, "The Garden of the Sklin", at a size larger than standard, in order to render more detail than usual in those stories. For a large poster image with a multitude of characters, he will go over the figure outlines with a marker in order to emphasize them. He will use photographic reference when appropriate, as when he draws things that he is not accustomed to.
Artist Jim Lee
is known to use F lead for his pencil work.
Artist J. Scott Campbell
does his pencil with a lead holder, and Sanford Turquoise H lead, which he uses for its softness and darkness, and for its ability to provide a "sketchy" feel, with a minimal amount of powdery lead smearing. He uses this lead because it strikes a balance between too hard, and therefore not dark enough on the page, and too soft, and therefore prone to smearing and crumbling. Campbell avoids its closest competitor because he finds it too waxy. Campbell has also used HB lead and F lead. He maintains sharpness of the lead with a Berold Turquoise sharpener, changing them every four to six months, which he finds is the duration of their grinding ability. Campbell uses a combination of Magic Rub erasers, eraser sticks, and since he began to ink his work digitally, a Sakura electric eraser. He often sharpens the eraser to a cornered edge in order to render fine detailed work.
Artist Travis Charest
uses mainly 2H lead to avoid smearing, and sometimes HB lead. He previously illustrated on regular illustration board provided by publishers, though he disliked the non-photo blue
lines printed on them. By 2000, he switched to Crescent board for all his work, because it does not warp when wet, produces sharper illustrations, and are more suitable for framing because they lack the non-photo blue lines. Charest usually prefers not to employ preliminary sketching practices, such as layouts, thumbnails or lightbox
ing, in part due to impatience, and in part because he enjoys the serendipitous nature in which artwork develops when produced with greater spontaneity. He also prefers to use reference only when rendering objects that require a degree of real-life accuracy, such as guns, vehicles or characters of licensed properties that must resemble actors with whom they are closely identified, as when he illustrated the cover to Star Trek: The Next Generation: Embrace the Wolf in 2000.
The penciling process that artist Adam Hughes
employs for his cover work is the same he uses when doing sketches for fans at conventions, with the main difference being that he does cover work in his sketchbook, before transferring the drawing to virgin art board with a lightbox, whereas he does convention drawings on 11 x 14 Strathmore bristol, as he prefers penciling on the rougher, vellum
surface rather than smooth paper, preferring smoother paper only for brush inking. He does preliminary undersketches with a lead holder, because he feels regular pencils get worn down to the nub too quickly. As he explained during a sketch demonstration at a comic book convention, during this process he uses a Sanford Turquoise 4B lead, a soft lead, though when working at home in Atlanta, where the humid weather tends to dampen the paper, he sometimes uses a B lead or 2B lead, which acts like a 4B in that environment. However, his website explains that he uses 6B lead, with some variation. For pieces rendered entirely in pencil, he employs a variety of pencil leads of varying degrees of hardness. After darkening in the construction lines that he wishes to keep, he erases the lighter ones with a kneaded eraser
before rendering greater detail. For more detailed erasures, he uses a pencil-shaped white eraser, and to erase large areas, he uses a larger, hand-held white eraser, which he calls a "thermonuclear eraser", because it "takes care of everything".
Artist and former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada
begins with sketches much smaller than the actual size at which he will render the final drawing. He employs a Cintiq drawing tablet when he desires to do a "tighter" digital layout of an illustration. When sketching figures, he will sometimes use photographic reference, and incorporate the photos directly into his sketches during the process of finalizing a layout. Once he makes a final decision on a layout, he will then print it out at full size, and use a light box to pencil it, sometimes altering elements in the design such as lighting or other details.
Artist Bryan Hitch
begins with multiple rough sketches employing different camera angles on paper with a blue pencil, which traditionally does not photocopy or scan, and then select the desired elements from the rough sketch with a graphite pencil. After picking the initial shapes, he will further emphasize his selections with a red marker pen and other colored pens, continuing to attempt different variations. He will then, depending on how late in the day it is, either redraw the illustration on a sheet of layout paper or use his lightbox to tighten and clean up the drawing, emphasizing that the lightbox should not be a mere exercise in tracing, but an opportunity to refine or change elements in the drawing to make it "clean" enough to be inked. When Hitch transfers the drawing to the final art board, he does initial layouts with a 2H pencil, which feels provides the necessary accuracy and detail, and uses an erasable blue pencil to mark panel frames and vanishing point
s, which he introduces after the rough stage. He chooses not to put too much time or polish into this stage, preferring to work quickly, lightly and instinctively. He uses a mechanical pencil with 0.9mm 2H lead at this stage for fine outlines and detail work, and a traditional pencil for more organic work, including softer lines, shading large areas and creating more fluid motion. The "best tool of all", according to him, is a traditional pencil cut with a craft knife, which he says can produce a variety of marks, and be used for detail, shading and general sketching. Hitch believes the best results combine both the mechanical and the knife-sharpened traditional pencil. He uses an Apple iMac desktop computer, flatbed scanner and Photoshop to modify his artwork digitally.
Artist Erik Larsen
uses a Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100 2H pencil, and a Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser.
While reading each page of a script, Amanda Conner
does tiny thumbnail sketches with stick figures corresponding to the story indicated on each page, in order to help her design the page's layout. She then does a tighter, more elaborate sketch, though still fairly small compared with the finished artwork, and then blows that up on a photocopier
to the proper original comic art size, which is 10 inches x 15 inches. She then uses "very tight pencils" to light-box it onto Bristol board, if she intends to have it inked by her husband and collaborator, Jimmy Palmiotti
, but will do the pencils "lighter and looser" if she intends to ink it herself, as she already knows how she wants the artwork rendered.
Once artist Gene Ha
obtains a script, he makes "tiny" thumbnail sketches of each page, and then makes layout sketches on shrunked copies of comic art board, two per page. It is at this stage that he works out the light/dark balance of the page. Though he says about 90% of his artwork are done without photo reference, he will sometimes photograph his friends pose as the central characters, or use a full length mirror to draw himself. He renders minor characters from his imagination. Irrespective of how much sunlight he has on a given day, he prefers to use a 500W incandescent photo lamp, though he believes a 500W halogen lamp is also adequate. He prefers to use a lead holder with H lead for sketching, and 2B lead for shading, which he sharpens with a rotary lead pointer, believing that such leads can be sharpened better than a traditional pencil. He blows up a scan of each page layout to 8.5" x 11", and draws "tight" pencils on top of these, which are then scanned and printed on 11" x 17" inkjet paper in faint blue line
. He prefers Xerox
paper because he feels that the surface of marker paper tends to get smudgy or oily. When importing art to modify in his computer, he uses Photoshop.
Artist Jason Shiga
penciled his 2011 graphic novel Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) with a yellow No. 2 pencil on copy paper, before transferring it with brushed ink via a lightbox.
Artist Jonathan Luna
uses 14 x 17 Strathmore Bristol board, which he cuts into 11 x 17 pieces on which to draw. He draws using a 2H pencil, and after inking his pencils with a Micron pen, he edits his line work on a graphics tablet.
Artist Marcio Takara begins his pages with 7" x 5" ink thumbnail sketches with which he shows his overall ideas to his editor. When he begins the actual pencils, he keeps them "loose", because he will eventually ink over them himself, and does not require greater specificity. The penciling stage is the fastest stage for Takara, who does all of his pencil work with an HB 0.5 mechanical pencil, completing two or three penciled pages a day, sometimes even inking all three by the end of the day.
Writer/artist Chuck Austen
did his work on Elektra
entirely on a computer. He prefers uses mostly Mac
s, but also uses PC
s. When using a Mac, he uses Ray Dream Studio
, and when using a PC, usings 3D Studio Max
. These allow him to take three-dimensional models and break them down into simplified two-tone line forms. He purchases the models from catalogues, or uses ones that he built for Strips using in Hash or Animation:Master
. After importing the models into Studio or Max, he arranges the angles and other aspects of the scene before rendering them, such as placement of background objects or modifying gestures, while the computer corrects elements such as perspective
, foreshortening, proportions, etc. After the files are rendered to Austen's satisfaction, he assembles them into page form using Photoshop, completing details that the modeling programs cannot perfect, such as facial expressions, hair, filling in blacks, rendering clothes and wrinkles, etc. To finish the art, he will either print out the "pencils" directly onto Bristol board
and finalize them with an HB Tombow pencil and ink them with a #2 nib, or will apply the finishes in Photoshop.
Scott McCloud
also does his computer almost entirely on a computer tablet. Although he sketches his layouts in pencil, the remainder of his work is done digitally, explaining in his 2006 book Making Comics that he had not used traditional materials like Bristol board
, pens or brushes in years. After sketching layouts, which he says are "pretty tight", and include the full script, he scans them into an 18-inch tablet/monitor to use them as a guide for lettering them in Adobe Illustrator
. After completing the lettering, he exports the files to Photoshop
, where he fully renders the art at a resolution of 1,200 dpi
, creating between five and fifty layers of finished art before flattening it into a single black and white bitmap
, plus a greyscale page, if needed.
Most pencillers develop a preference for the work of certain inkers and vice versa. Some penciller/inker teams have enjoyed long and celebrated collaborations when their styles mesh particularly well. In less successful cases, an inker's style may not complement that of the penciller, or the inker's own style may be so prominent that in effect it buries the work of the penciller.
In earlier generations it was more common for artists to use a loose pencilling approach, in which the penciller did not take much care to reduce the vagaries of the pencil art, leaving it to the inker to interpret the penciller's intent. (In those cases, the penciler was usually credited with "breakdowns" or "layouts," while the inker was credited as the "embellisher" or "finisher".) Today many pencillers prefer to create very meticulously detailed pages, where every nuance that they expect to see in the inked art is indicated in pencil. This is known as tight pencilling.
, who commissions a script from the writer
and sends it to the penciller.
Comic book scripts can take a variety of forms. Some writers, such as Alan Moore
, produce complete, elaborate, and lengthy outlines of each page. Others send the artist only a plot outline consisting of no more than a short overview of key scenes with little or no dialogue. Stan Lee
, the founder of Marvel Comics
, was known to prefer this latter form, and thus it came to be known as the Marvel Method
.
Sometimes a writer or another artist (such as an art director
) will include basic layouts, called "breakdown
s," to assist the penciller in scene composition. If no breakdowns are included, then it falls to the penciller to determine the layout of each page, including the number of panels, their shapes and their positions. Even when these visual details are indicated by a script, a penciller may feel when drawing the scene that there is a different way of composing the scene, and may disregard the script, usually following consultation with the editor and/or writer.
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s, and similar visual art forms.
The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout (positions and vantages on scenes) to showcase steps in the plot. In earlier generations it was more common for artists to use a loose pencilling approach, in which the penciller does not take much care to reduce the vagaries of the pencil art, leaving it to the inker to interpret the penciller's intent and render the art in a more finished state.
Tools and materials
A penciller works in pencilPencil
A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....
. Beyond this basic description, however, different artists choose to use a wide variety of different tools. While many artists use traditional wood pencils, others prefer mechanical pencil
Mechanical pencil
A mechanical pencil or a propelling pencil is a pencil with a replaceable and mechanically extendable solid pigment core called a lead . It is designed such that the lead can be extended as its point is worn away...
s or drafting leads. Pencillers may use any lead hardness they wish, although many artists use a harder lead (like a 2H) to make light lines for initial sketches, then turn to a slightly softer lead for finishing phases of the drawing. Still other artists do their initial layouts using a light blue
Non-photo blue
Non-photo blue is a common tool used in the graphic design and print industry. It is a particular shade of blue that can not be detected by graphic arts cameras. This allows layout editors to write notes to the printer on the print flat which will not show in the final form...
colored pencil because that color tends to disappear during photocopying.
Most comic book pages are drawn over-sized on large sheets of paper, usually Bristol board
Bristol board
Bristol board is an uncoated, machine-finished paperboard. It is named after the city of Bristol in the southwest of England...
. The customary size of comic book pages in the mainstream American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comics industry is 11 by 17 inches. The inker
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
usually works directly over the penciller's pencil marks, though occasionally pages are inked on translucent paper, such as drafting vellum
Vellum
Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...
, preserving the original pencils. The artwork is later photographically reduced in size during the printing process.
Art Adams
Art Adams
Arthur "Art" Adams is an American comic book artist and writer. He first broke into the American comic book industry with the 1985 Marvel Comics miniseries Longshot...
begins drawing thumbnail layouts from the script he's given, either at home or in a public place. The thumbnails range in size from 2 inches x 3 inches to half the size of the printed comic book. He or an assistant will then enlarge the thumbnails and trace them onto illustration board with a non-photo blue pencil, sometimes using a Prismacolor
Prismacolor
Prismacolor is a brand of professional artists' supplies originated by Berol in 1938, and now manufactured by Newell Rubbermaid. Among the items in the Prismacolor line are colored pencils, Art Stix, pastels, watercolors, and alcohol-based permanent art markers....
light blue pencil, because it is not too waxy, and erases easily. When working on the final illustration board, he does so on a large drawing board when in his basement studio, and a lapboard when sitting on his living room couch. After tracing the thumbnails, he will then clarify details with another light blue pencil, and finalize the details with a Number 2 pencil. He drew the first three chapters of "Jonni Future
Jonni Future
Jonni Future is a fictional comic book heroine, who appeared in the pages of Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, a series published under writer Alan Moore's America's Best Comics line of comic books for Wildstorm Comics...
" at twice the printed comic size, and also drew the fifth chapter, "The Garden of the Sklin", at a size larger than standard, in order to render more detail than usual in those stories. For a large poster image with a multitude of characters, he will go over the figure outlines with a marker in order to emphasize them. He will use photographic reference when appropriate, as when he draws things that he is not accustomed to.
Artist Jim Lee
Jim Lee
Jim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher. He first broke into the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, before gaining a great deal of popularity on The Uncanny X-Men...
is known to use F lead for his pencil work.
Artist J. Scott Campbell
J. Scott Campbell
Jeffrey Scott Campbell is an American comic book artist. He has had several pen names, including "Jeff Scott", but is best known as J. Scott Campbell...
does his pencil with a lead holder, and Sanford Turquoise H lead, which he uses for its softness and darkness, and for its ability to provide a "sketchy" feel, with a minimal amount of powdery lead smearing. He uses this lead because it strikes a balance between too hard, and therefore not dark enough on the page, and too soft, and therefore prone to smearing and crumbling. Campbell avoids its closest competitor because he finds it too waxy. Campbell has also used HB lead and F lead. He maintains sharpness of the lead with a Berold Turquoise sharpener, changing them every four to six months, which he finds is the duration of their grinding ability. Campbell uses a combination of Magic Rub erasers, eraser sticks, and since he began to ink his work digitally, a Sakura electric eraser. He often sharpens the eraser to a cornered edge in order to render fine detailed work.
Artist Travis Charest
Travis Charest
Travis Charest is a Canadian comic book penciller, inker and painter, known for his work on such books as Darkstars, WildC.A.T.s, Grifter/Shi, WildC.A.T.s/X-Men: The Golden Age and The Metabarons...
uses mainly 2H lead to avoid smearing, and sometimes HB lead. He previously illustrated on regular illustration board provided by publishers, though he disliked the non-photo blue
Non-photo blue
Non-photo blue is a common tool used in the graphic design and print industry. It is a particular shade of blue that can not be detected by graphic arts cameras. This allows layout editors to write notes to the printer on the print flat which will not show in the final form...
lines printed on them. By 2000, he switched to Crescent board for all his work, because it does not warp when wet, produces sharper illustrations, and are more suitable for framing because they lack the non-photo blue lines. Charest usually prefers not to employ preliminary sketching practices, such as layouts, thumbnails or lightbox
Lightbox
Lightbox may refer to:* Various backlit viewing devices:** A container with several lightbulbs and a pane of frosted glass on the top. It is used by photography professionals viewing translucent films, such as slides. This device was originally used to sort photographic plates with ease. It is also...
ing, in part due to impatience, and in part because he enjoys the serendipitous nature in which artwork develops when produced with greater spontaneity. He also prefers to use reference only when rendering objects that require a degree of real-life accuracy, such as guns, vehicles or characters of licensed properties that must resemble actors with whom they are closely identified, as when he illustrated the cover to Star Trek: The Next Generation: Embrace the Wolf in 2000.
The penciling process that artist Adam Hughes
Adam Hughes
Adam Hughes is an American comic book artist who has worked for companies such as DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros...
employs for his cover work is the same he uses when doing sketches for fans at conventions, with the main difference being that he does cover work in his sketchbook, before transferring the drawing to virgin art board with a lightbox, whereas he does convention drawings on 11 x 14 Strathmore bristol, as he prefers penciling on the rougher, vellum
Vellum
Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...
surface rather than smooth paper, preferring smoother paper only for brush inking. He does preliminary undersketches with a lead holder, because he feels regular pencils get worn down to the nub too quickly. As he explained during a sketch demonstration at a comic book convention, during this process he uses a Sanford Turquoise 4B lead, a soft lead, though when working at home in Atlanta, where the humid weather tends to dampen the paper, he sometimes uses a B lead or 2B lead, which acts like a 4B in that environment. However, his website explains that he uses 6B lead, with some variation. For pieces rendered entirely in pencil, he employs a variety of pencil leads of varying degrees of hardness. After darkening in the construction lines that he wishes to keep, he erases the lighter ones with a kneaded eraser
Kneaded eraser
The kneaded eraser/putty rubber is a tool for artists. It is usually made of a grey or white pliable material that resembles putty or gum. It functions by "absorbing" and "picking up" graphite and charcoal particles...
before rendering greater detail. For more detailed erasures, he uses a pencil-shaped white eraser, and to erase large areas, he uses a larger, hand-held white eraser, which he calls a "thermonuclear eraser", because it "takes care of everything".
Artist and former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada
Joe Quesada
Joseph "Joe" Quesada is an American comic book editor, writer and artist. He became known in the 1990s for his work on various Valiant Comics books, such as Ninjak and Solar, Man of the Atom...
begins with sketches much smaller than the actual size at which he will render the final drawing. He employs a Cintiq drawing tablet when he desires to do a "tighter" digital layout of an illustration. When sketching figures, he will sometimes use photographic reference, and incorporate the photos directly into his sketches during the process of finalizing a layout. Once he makes a final decision on a layout, he will then print it out at full size, and use a light box to pencil it, sometimes altering elements in the design such as lighting or other details.
Artist Bryan Hitch
Bryan Hitch
Bryan Hitch is a British comic book artist. Hitch began his career in the United Kingdom for Marvel UK, working on titles such as Action Force and Death's Head, before gaining prominence on American titles such as Wildstorm's Stormwatch and The Authority, DC Comics titles such as JLA, and Marvel...
begins with multiple rough sketches employing different camera angles on paper with a blue pencil, which traditionally does not photocopy or scan, and then select the desired elements from the rough sketch with a graphite pencil. After picking the initial shapes, he will further emphasize his selections with a red marker pen and other colored pens, continuing to attempt different variations. He will then, depending on how late in the day it is, either redraw the illustration on a sheet of layout paper or use his lightbox to tighten and clean up the drawing, emphasizing that the lightbox should not be a mere exercise in tracing, but an opportunity to refine or change elements in the drawing to make it "clean" enough to be inked. When Hitch transfers the drawing to the final art board, he does initial layouts with a 2H pencil, which feels provides the necessary accuracy and detail, and uses an erasable blue pencil to mark panel frames and vanishing point
Vanishing point
A vanishing point is a point in a perspective drawing to which parallel lines not parallel to the image plane appear to converge. The number and placement of the vanishing points determines which perspective technique is being used...
s, which he introduces after the rough stage. He chooses not to put too much time or polish into this stage, preferring to work quickly, lightly and instinctively. He uses a mechanical pencil with 0.9mm 2H lead at this stage for fine outlines and detail work, and a traditional pencil for more organic work, including softer lines, shading large areas and creating more fluid motion. The "best tool of all", according to him, is a traditional pencil cut with a craft knife, which he says can produce a variety of marks, and be used for detail, shading and general sketching. Hitch believes the best results combine both the mechanical and the knife-sharpened traditional pencil. He uses an Apple iMac desktop computer, flatbed scanner and Photoshop to modify his artwork digitally.
Artist Erik Larsen
Erik Larsen
Erik J. Larsen is an American comic book writer, artist and publisher. He is best known for his work on Savage Dragon, as one of the founders of Image Comics, and for his work on Spider-Man for Marvel Comics.-Early life:...
uses a Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100 2H pencil, and a Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser.
While reading each page of a script, Amanda Conner
Amanda Conner
Amanda Conner is an Irish-American comic book artist and commercial art illustrator. She began her career in the late 1980s for Archie Comics and Marvel Comics, before moving on to contribute work for Claypool Comics' Soulsearchers and Company and Harris Comics' Vampirella in the 1990s...
does tiny thumbnail sketches with stick figures corresponding to the story indicated on each page, in order to help her design the page's layout. She then does a tighter, more elaborate sketch, though still fairly small compared with the finished artwork, and then blows that up on a photocopier
Photocopier
A photocopier is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process using heat...
to the proper original comic art size, which is 10 inches x 15 inches. She then uses "very tight pencils" to light-box it onto Bristol board, if she intends to have it inked by her husband and collaborator, Jimmy Palmiotti
Jimmy Palmiotti
James "Jimmy" Palmiotti is an American writer and inker of comic books, who also does writing for games, television and film.-Early life:Palmiotti is a graduate of the High School of Art and Design in New York City.-Career:...
, but will do the pencils "lighter and looser" if she intends to ink it herself, as she already knows how she wants the artwork rendered.
Once artist Gene Ha
Gene Ha
Gene Ha is an American comics artist and writer best known for his work on books such as Top 10 and Top 10: The Forty-Niners, with Alan Moore and Zander Cannon, for America's Best Comics, the Batman graphic novel Fortunate Son, with Gerard Jones, and The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, among...
obtains a script, he makes "tiny" thumbnail sketches of each page, and then makes layout sketches on shrunked copies of comic art board, two per page. It is at this stage that he works out the light/dark balance of the page. Though he says about 90% of his artwork are done without photo reference, he will sometimes photograph his friends pose as the central characters, or use a full length mirror to draw himself. He renders minor characters from his imagination. Irrespective of how much sunlight he has on a given day, he prefers to use a 500W incandescent photo lamp, though he believes a 500W halogen lamp is also adequate. He prefers to use a lead holder with H lead for sketching, and 2B lead for shading, which he sharpens with a rotary lead pointer, believing that such leads can be sharpened better than a traditional pencil. He blows up a scan of each page layout to 8.5" x 11", and draws "tight" pencils on top of these, which are then scanned and printed on 11" x 17" inkjet paper in faint blue line
Non-photo blue
Non-photo blue is a common tool used in the graphic design and print industry. It is a particular shade of blue that can not be detected by graphic arts cameras. This allows layout editors to write notes to the printer on the print flat which will not show in the final form...
. He prefers Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
paper because he feels that the surface of marker paper tends to get smudgy or oily. When importing art to modify in his computer, he uses Photoshop.
Artist Jason Shiga
Jason Shiga
Jason Shiga is an Asian American cartoonist who incorporates puzzles, mysteries and unconventional narrative techniques into his work.-Early life:...
penciled his 2011 graphic novel Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) with a yellow No. 2 pencil on copy paper, before transferring it with brushed ink via a lightbox.
Artist Jonathan Luna
Jonathan Luna
Jonathan P. Luna was a Baltimore-based Assistant United States Attorney who was stabbed 36 times with his own penknife and found drowned in a creek in Pennsylvania.- Personal background :...
uses 14 x 17 Strathmore Bristol board, which he cuts into 11 x 17 pieces on which to draw. He draws using a 2H pencil, and after inking his pencils with a Micron pen, he edits his line work on a graphics tablet.
Artist Marcio Takara begins his pages with 7" x 5" ink thumbnail sketches with which he shows his overall ideas to his editor. When he begins the actual pencils, he keeps them "loose", because he will eventually ink over them himself, and does not require greater specificity. The penciling stage is the fastest stage for Takara, who does all of his pencil work with an HB 0.5 mechanical pencil, completing two or three penciled pages a day, sometimes even inking all three by the end of the day.
Writer/artist Chuck Austen
Chuck Austen
Chuck Austen is an American comic book writer/artist, TV writer and animator. In the comics industry, he is known for his work on War Machine, Elektra, Action Comics, and the X-Men franchise, and in television, he is known for co-creating the aniamted TV series Tripping the Rift.-Early life:Austen...
did his work on Elektra
Elektra (comics)
Elektra Natchios, usually referred to only by her first name Elektra, is a fictional character in publications from Marvel Comics.Elektra is a kunoichi – female ninja assassin – of Greek descent. She wields a pair of bladed sai as her trademark weapon. She is a love interest of the superhero...
entirely on a computer. He prefers uses mostly Mac
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
s, but also uses PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
s. When using a Mac, he uses Ray Dream Studio
Ray Dream Studio
Ray Dream Studio was a low-end 3D modeling software application. Initially developed by Ray Dream, Inc. in 1989-1991 for the Macintosh, it was acquired and upgraded over the course of mergers with Fractal Design and MetaCreations...
, and when using a PC, usings 3D Studio Max
3D Studio Max
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio MAX, is for making 3D animations. It was developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and can be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It's frequently used by video game developers, TV...
. These allow him to take three-dimensional models and break them down into simplified two-tone line forms. He purchases the models from catalogues, or uses ones that he built for Strips using in Hash or Animation:Master
Animation:Master
Animation:Master is a 3D character animation application offered by Hash, Inc. that includes tools for modeling, rigging, animating, texturing, lighting and rendering...
. After importing the models into Studio or Max, he arranges the angles and other aspects of the scene before rendering them, such as placement of background objects or modifying gestures, while the computer corrects elements such as perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
, foreshortening, proportions, etc. After the files are rendered to Austen's satisfaction, he assembles them into page form using Photoshop, completing details that the modeling programs cannot perfect, such as facial expressions, hair, filling in blacks, rendering clothes and wrinkles, etc. To finish the art, he will either print out the "pencils" directly onto Bristol board
Bristol board
Bristol board is an uncoated, machine-finished paperboard. It is named after the city of Bristol in the southwest of England...
and finalize them with an HB Tombow pencil and ink them with a #2 nib, or will apply the finishes in Photoshop.
Scott McCloud
Scott McCloud
Scott McCloud is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium...
also does his computer almost entirely on a computer tablet. Although he sketches his layouts in pencil, the remainder of his work is done digitally, explaining in his 2006 book Making Comics that he had not used traditional materials like Bristol board
Bristol board
Bristol board is an uncoated, machine-finished paperboard. It is named after the city of Bristol in the southwest of England...
, pens or brushes in years. After sketching layouts, which he says are "pretty tight", and include the full script, he scans them into an 18-inch tablet/monitor to use them as a guide for lettering them in Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. Illustrator is similar in scope, intended market, and functionality to its competitors, CorelDraw, Xara Designer Pro and Macromedia FreeHand....
. After completing the lettering, he exports the files to Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
, where he fully renders the art at a resolution of 1,200 dpi
Dots per inch
Dots per inch is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch . The DPI value tends to correlate with image resolution, but is related only indirectly.- DPI measurement in monitor...
, creating between five and fifty layers of finished art before flattening it into a single black and white bitmap
Bitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
, plus a greyscale page, if needed.
Style
Because a penciller does not usually create finished art, the extent to which the pencilled pages resemble the final, inked version varies depending on the artist.Most pencillers develop a preference for the work of certain inkers and vice versa. Some penciller/inker teams have enjoyed long and celebrated collaborations when their styles mesh particularly well. In less successful cases, an inker's style may not complement that of the penciller, or the inker's own style may be so prominent that in effect it buries the work of the penciller.
In earlier generations it was more common for artists to use a loose pencilling approach, in which the penciller did not take much care to reduce the vagaries of the pencil art, leaving it to the inker to interpret the penciller's intent. (In those cases, the penciler was usually credited with "breakdowns" or "layouts," while the inker was credited as the "embellisher" or "finisher".) Today many pencillers prefer to create very meticulously detailed pages, where every nuance that they expect to see in the inked art is indicated in pencil. This is known as tight pencilling.
Workflow
A comic book penciller usually works closely with the comic book's editorEditing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
, who commissions a script from the writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and sends it to the penciller.
Comic book scripts can take a variety of forms. Some writers, such as Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
, produce complete, elaborate, and lengthy outlines of each page. Others send the artist only a plot outline consisting of no more than a short overview of key scenes with little or no dialogue. Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
, the founder of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, was known to prefer this latter form, and thus it came to be known as the Marvel Method
Marvel Method
The Marvel Method is a form of comic book writer-artist collaboration in which the artist works from a story synopsis, rather than a full script, creating page-by-page plot details on his or her own...
.
Sometimes a writer or another artist (such as an art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
) will include basic layouts, called "breakdown
Script breakdown
A script breakdown is an intermediate step in the production of a play, film, comic book, or any other work that is originally planned using a script.-Film and television:...
s," to assist the penciller in scene composition. If no breakdowns are included, then it falls to the penciller to determine the layout of each page, including the number of panels, their shapes and their positions. Even when these visual details are indicated by a script, a penciller may feel when drawing the scene that there is a different way of composing the scene, and may disregard the script, usually following consultation with the editor and/or writer.
Notable pencillers
- Neal AdamsNeal AdamsNeal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...
- Ed BenesEd BenesJosé Edilbenes Bezerra is a Brazilian comic book artist, better known by his pen name of Ed Benes...
- Wayne BoringWayne BoringWayne Boring was an American comic book artist best known for his work on Superman from the late 1940s to 1950s. He occasionally used the pseudonym Jack Harmon....
- John BuscemaJohn BuscemaJohn Buscema, born Giovanni Natale Buscema , was an American comic-book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop culture conglomerate...
- John Byrne
- Gene ColanGene ColanEugene Jules "Gene" Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series...
- Dick DillinDick DillinRichard Allen "Dick" Dillin was an American comic book artist best known for an extraordinarily long 12-year run as the penciler of the DC Comics superhero-team series Justice League of America. He drew 115 issues from 1968 up until his death, bridging the venerable title's Mike Sekowsky and...
- Steve DitkoSteve DitkoStephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....
- Will EisnerWill EisnerWilliam Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
- Carmine InfantinoCarmine InfantinoCarmine Infantino Carmine Infantino Carmine Infantino (born May 24, 1925, in Brooklyn, New York is an American comic book artist and editor who was a major force in the Silver Age of Comic Books...
- Gil KaneGil KaneEli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
- Lee HarrisHarris LeveyHarris Levey , whose pseudonyms included Lee Harris, Leland Harris, and Harris Levy, was a comic book artist for DC Comics primarily in the 1940s...
- Jack KirbyJack KirbyJack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
- Jim LeeJim LeeJim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher. He first broke into the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, before gaining a great deal of popularity on The Uncanny X-Men...
- Todd McFarlaneTodd McFarlaneTodd McFarlane is a Canadian cartoonist, writer, toy designer and entrepreneur, best known for his work in comic books, such as the fantasy series Spawn....
- Frank MillerFrank Miller (comics)Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
- George PérezGeorge PérezGeorge Pérez is a Puerto Rican-American writer and illustrator of comic books, known for his work on various titles, including Avengers, Teen Titans and Wonder Woman.-Biography:...
- Frank QuitelyFrank QuitelyVincent Deighan, better known by the pen name Frank Quitely, is a Scottish comic book artist. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with Grant Morrison on titles such as New X-Men, We3, All-Star Superman, and Batman and Robin, as well as his work with Mark Millar on The...
- John Romita Sr
- Walt SimonsonWalt SimonsonWalter "Walt" Simonson is an American comic book writer and artist. After studying geology at Amherst College, he transferred to the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 1972. His thesis project there was The Star Slammers, which was published as a black and white promotional comic book...
- Curt SwanCurt SwanDouglas Curtis Swan was an American comic book artist. The artist most associated with Superman during the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books, Swan produced hundreds of covers and stories from the 1950s through the 1980s.-Early life and career:Curt Swan, whose Swedish...
- Michael Turner
- Bob KaneBob KaneBob Kane was an American comic book artist and writer, credited as the creator of the DC Comics superhero Batman...