Stretch Before You Sketch: Ms. MM Warm-Ups!

Update (April 7, 2018): Finally colored these figures in Photoshop:

Originally posted October 30, 2014:

I have been doing a lot of penciling and to warm up, and I have a tendency to sketch Ms. Megaton Man in one form or another. (It's important to stretch before you sketch, particularly when a comic book is in production; otherwise you can pull a muscle!) As a character that straddles the comedic and dramatic, Clarissa has all the energy that I always loved about comics, and she just rolls out of my pencil.

Light Blue Col-Erase and Staedtler Mars Lumograph H pencil on Strathmore Recycled Sketchbook.

Update November 7, 2014: Some of these warm-up sketches seem worthy to develop further, so I scan and print out (often, slightly larger than the original). This frees the drawing from the sketchbook (where they often originate) and also preserve the original pencil drawing. This gives me a sense of freedom when I ink (I know I can't screw it up, since I can always go back to the original and try again), and that relaxation paradoxically is usually enough to ensure a positive outcome on the first try (go figure!).

The ink finals, below:

Hunt #102 Crowquill pen and India ink on Clearprint Design Vellum.

Hunt #102 Crowquill pen and India ink on Clearprint Design Vellum.

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

Which Way to the Beach? Ms. Megaton Man Post-Labor Day Volleyball Tests, 2014

Yes, it's after Labor Day, but there is still plenty of warm summer weather, and the Phantom Jungle Girl and Ms. Megaton Man are still up for some Jungle Rules Sandball (along with the Earth Mother). Here are a couple of ink tests made on Clearprint Design Vellum, completed in September 2014, based on sketches from 2012. The storyline relates to material I am working on for The New Megaton Man #3 and #4 (see the Megaton Man blog for more previews!).

Original sketchbook pages from July 2012. Light blue Col-Erase and graphite pencil.

Ink, summer 2014 (completed September 4, 2014).

Ink, September 4, 2014.

Original sketchbook page, 2012.

Penciled tier from the as-yet unpublished graphic novel Megaton Man: Return to Megatropolis, c. 2015.

Preliminary flat-coloring of the finished line art.

Final coloring of the last panel.

Update March 11, 2019: Read Clarissa's account of how she met Stella Starlight, Trent Phloog, Bing Gloom, and the whole universe of Megaheroes in the prose serial Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series, the new YA novel by Don Simpson!

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!