Points from the Paint: Clarissa vs. Fanny!

Here is a couple of unpublished pages from c. 1993 featuring Clarissa James (Ms. Megaton Man) and Donna Blank, the Phantom Jungle Girl, shooting some hoops on some suburban driveway. This sequence was intended to be a part of Bizarre Heroes, and I don't know why I was too lazy to ink the sparse backgrounds and finish them up (including the last panel with Jasper Johnson, Rubber Brother). This scene offers some important backstory to the Phantom Jungle Girl and her historical origins and I still may use it as a flashback scene in some future project.

What is unusual about these pages is that they are largely inked with a Hunt #102 crowquill pen and some brush on plate finish Bristol, which inks a lot smoother than the usual medium surface Bristol I used with brush. It is also significant that my female characters tended toward more realistic proportions much earlier than my male characters. Prior to this, I tended to make everyone cartoony so as to match the unwieldy proportions of Megaton Man, a tension that I struggled with for far too long. One of the reasons I always found some release in drawing Ms. Megaton Man was precisely this release from the feeling that everything in the Megaton Man narrative had to appear exaggerated and humorous. By this time I was growing comfortable with the idea that things could be light and humorous (and character-driven instead of parody-driven), and drawn in a less forced way.

1989 to 2015: Early Ms. Megaton Man Sketch Finally Finished!

Here's a newly inked and colored pin-up of Clarissa James, Ms. Megaton Man, and Stella Starlight, the See-Thru Girl, developed from a 1989 sketch. I scanned the original, fleshed out in pencil and Sharpie pen, then further refined on canary yellow tracing paper, and finally inked on Clearprint Design Vellum.

1989 is significant because this would have been one of the earliest Ms. Megaton Man sketches. The fact that I can still make something of the pose shows how significant the character was for my development. Ms. Megaton Man allowed me to get closer to something like a realistically-proportioned superhero style and away from the humorous style that I never found satisfying for the secondary characters surrounding Megaton Man.

The final colored in Photoshop

The rough sketch blown up next to the pencil elaboration

The final ink on Clearprint next to the refined rough on canary yellow tracing paper

The original 1989 sketch. Something about this gesture seemed worth developing further!

Final linework on Clearprint Design Vellum

The sketch elaborated with blue and graphite pencil, and tightened with Sharpie fine line pen .03 mm

The drawing refined on canary yellow tracing paper

More Traced Sketches: Don's Convoluted New Inking Method Explained!

More Ms. Megaton Man poses, culled from sketchbooks dating back to 2010, inked on Clearprint 1000HP Design Vellum yesterday (June 18, 2014). At this point, I've probably inked about 80% of the inkable images from my old and current sketchbooks, by which I mean tightly penciled and ready to ink with minimal modification. I didn't ink them at the time because a) they were spontaneous, casual sketches, and I had no immediate purpose in mind for them; b) the drawing paper of the various sketchbooks might by fine for penciling but less suitable to ink; and c) the images often were a bit too small to ink comfortably; and d) inking them in the sketchbook, while leaving the sketchbook intact, would have been a bit cumbersome. Still, when I looked over these images, I would say, "Gee, I ought to do something with these!" Through trial and error, I think I've optimized a method of scanning, blowing up, printing out, and using Clearprint, along with Elmer's repositionable glue stick, to salvage these freely-drawn images from the obscurity of my sketchbooks. Are they just clip art now, or will certain poses make their way into future story panels and pages? Stay tuned.

Clarissa gets zapped by some unknown ray. Unlike most of the characters in the Megaverse, who say "Darn!" or "#$%@!?!," Ms. Megaton Man is one that I feel should explicitly swear. She will say "ass" instead of "butt," etc. In other words, she's got a mouth on her, and I can't seem to do anything about it.

This is a shot of the old drawing board and the original Moleskine sketchbook, with the drawing in Col-Erase Light Blue pencil and graphite pencil, next to the blow up and the ink final on Clearprint (the orange pads below are Clearprint pads of different sizes that I prefer. The original image is about 7" tall, which I blew up to 11". Determining the right size is somewhat arbitrary. Most of sketches I've inked utilizing this method have been fairly close to size, so this is unusually enlarged. This photo also gives a good idea of the translucence of the Clearprint material. Note the Pro-White corrections on the final.

Here is something of an awkward pose for Ms. Megaton Man. I may have been looking at Ross Andru again!!

Here is a rather robust and somewhat lanky version of Clarissa. Usually she is more compact, but here she turned out more expansive than usual.

This was a swipe from a fitness image, modified quite a bit since the original source had the left forearm across the bust line, and was cropped mid-thigh. I think the result counts as original, or at least not actionable! (A special Woo-Prize if you can identify the source!)

For some reason, this pose taps into some obscure John Romita-John Buscema-Jim Mooney-Dick Giordano melange of influences. There are a lot of comic books I read as a youth but never consciously studied to emulate as a cartoonist (particularly true of Ross Andru, who was not a favorite at the time, although I can respect certain aspects of his craft nowadays); still, a these influences seem to be burbling up lately as I become less concerned of hewing to a particular style and simply try to get the job done!

One of the pitfalls of my current method is record keeping. I've tried various kinds of scanning, photocopying, and sizing; consequently I have a lot of print outs tucked away in different folders, envelopes, and boxes. In this case, this led to me inking something that I'd forgotten I'd inked before! The first time was mostly with a brush, while the second was entirely with a crowquill. In the first one the linework is a bit fatter, but otherwise I don't discern much qualitative difference. This speaks to one of the advantages this way of inking has over penciling and inking on the same piece of Bristol board: you can always ink it again if you mess up or don't like the first result!

The main advantage of this method, as I said, is that I can salvage some good work from past sketchbooks, but it also comes in handy for making corrections and possibly inking images for which the original is lost and only a reproduction or poor quality photograph remains. Most of my sketchbooks are filled with doodles and scribbles that would require a great deal of further refinement at the pencil stage before they could be inked; in those cases, it would almost be easier to just begin with a new sheet of paper and start from scratch, eyeballing the original doodle for reference. But I have also adapted this method for new panels, tiers and pages -- it saves having to erase the pencil lines from the original artwork, which can sometimes fade the ink lines.

One last pose, reminiscent of Gil Kane inked by John Romita, some of my favorite comic book artwork of all time. Appropriate for Clarissa!

Ladies of the Megaverse Revealed!

No, not the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, or the Playboy collegiate special ... just some more sketchbook poses extracted from several sketchbooks stretching over the past few years, all inked last night (Sunday, June 16, 2014). Although they do start out kind of threadbare, then are "clothed" as I ink them!

Here is the development of a Ms. Megaton Man pose, probably from about 2010, running. Left: light blue Col-Erase and graphite pencil; Middle: a tighter version on Pilot pen and Vis-a-Vis Wet Erase Fine Point on canary yellow tracing paper; Right: ink on Bienfang Graphics paper. The last choice was an accident; I usually ink on Clearprint vellum!

Ms. Megaton Man especially is fun to draw, and I have filled many pages of my recent sketches of her to let off steam during grad school and a subsequent year of college teaching, when I did not want to initiate any large-scale cartooning projects that I couldn't complete in a timely manner.

Here is a more overtly Jack Kirby-ish pose for Clarissa, inked on Clearprint 1000HP Design Vellum. Often as warm ups I doodle geometric shapes; this establishes a sense of volume that carries over when I sketch the human figure.

There is always something added and something taken away in the inking process, but that's the nature of cartooning for print. Of course, in the digital environment, there is not real need to ink any more, but I enjoy the craft and am used to thinking and developing the drawing to its fullest in terms of pen or brush lines.

Again, before and after. Somehow Ms. MM tends to resemble Julianna Margulies a bit here!

This selection especially shows how my conception of Ms. Megaton Man's body type and personality has changed over time, or at least it reveals some interesting contrasts. There are also sketches of the Phantom Jungle Girl and See-Thru Girl Android below.

Here I tightened up the pencil sketch in Pilot pen. Six years later, I inked it! Clarissa is a bit to lithe, if not skinny, here.

This is one of my favorite Clarissa poses of all. I've had a jpeg of the pencil as my background on my laptop through the last year or two of grad school. Often, it would show up in classes before I projected my lecture Powerpoint. Odd to finally ink it just yesterday!

Same deal, with the Phantom Jungle Girl. I began inking this quite some time ago, then set aside, finishing it up only last night. It seemed a bit awkward putting a top on her. Perhaps she's at a clothing-optional beach...

These are a couple of rather Gil Kane-ish poses of an indeterminate figure. It didn't feel like I was drawing Ms. Megaton Man, nor did it feel like the Earth Mother (Stella Starlight).

I scanned the above sketches and printed them out to 8.5" x 11". I decided to make them into the See-Thru Girl Android, a mute and immobile version of Stella Starlight's younger persona, and who has been dormant so far in the current Atomic Aftermath continuity. That will change soon as she becomes reactivated and an ongoing character with a mind of her own. What will the real, older Stella do when she is confronted with her younger self? To say nothing of Megaton Man...

The other pose, tightened then inked. This may have been more of a Ms. Megaton Man pose after all, with her stockier, solid frame.

From Sketch to Splash: Robot Crap-Kicker

During the past decade, when I was in college and graduate school, most of my intermittent drawing activity was confined to sketchbooks, and then often Ms. Megaton Man, a more realistic megahero than the satirical Megaton Man himself. She is dynamic and fun to draw, and I would often fill page after page of her, often fighting robot. In this sketch, dated July 6, 2012, she does a ballet landing on her toes while kicking and punching two robots. Today (June 14, 2014), I finally finished inking the page. Here are the various steps:

The original 9" x 12" ringbound sketchbook page, in light blue Col-Erase and HB graphite pencil. I was too lazy to finish the robots.

Here I've scanned the sketchbook page and printed it out at 11" x 17", tightening up the robot figures in light blue and graphite pencil, and adding dialogue. A red Col-Erase pencil was used on the sound effect.

This is the inked version on Clearprint HP1000 Design Vellum. I use a repositionable glue stick to adhere the material to the pencil layout, and later remove the glue with a rubber cement pick-up. I use 2.5 and 3.5 Rapidographs, Hunt 102 crowquill, and a Speedball B4 to ink and letter.

Here is the image, with some flat coloring thrown on in Photoshop. I'm still too lazy to finish the robots, so a final color version will be posted later!