Commissioned by Bolt 01 on: 08/03/16 Artwork Started: 09/05/16
Finished on: 01/06/16 Published on: 01/11/16
Strontium Dog created by: John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. Copyright: Rebellion.
Introduction:
After being contacted by Bolt 01 edior of the 2000ad Strontium Dog fanzine 'Dogbreath' I agreed to draw my 'Ninth' Dogbreath script written by Paul Eidridge.
Rough designs, page layouts, page pencils and finished pages.
One page out of this seven page comic strip has been left out so as not to give away too much of the story.
Above: Rough character sketches of the four armed mutant Johnny fights in the pit and one of Johnny wiping the blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Above: Rough page layout for page one.
DB: As usual notice that I add narration and speech bubble marking to each panel to make sure I have enough space.
Above: Finished page one pencils.
DB: Please note very slight changes from the original page layout.
DB: I some times like to keep my inking basic if I know I'm going to be adding grey tone or colour to the finished page.
Above: Page one finished with grey tones added.
DB: Aprroximately 12 hours work from pencils to finished grey tones.
DB: Please note that as well as speech balloons I've added notes for things mentioned in the script such as the kneepad in panel one that need to be seen by the reader.
Above: Another rough page layout for page 3.
DB: I decided to spend a little more time on this page layout. I had to work out how to draw the body dynamics I was being asked for on Panel four. I also needed to find more page space to be able to do this.
Above: Finished page two pencils.
DB: As you can see I decided to shrink panel 3 which is just a picture of Johnny's face to give me more space for panel four. Writers new to writing comic scripts might want to consider this with regards to 'not packing' too much (visual & words) into a page which already has six panels on a page and is being printed at A5 (half the page size of 2000AD). This is just my opinion and and not a comment on Paul Eldridges script.
Above: Finished page two artwork with grey tones added.
DB: Please note that I use darker background to help push out the characters in the panel.
Above: Page three rough layouts.
Above: Another rough page layout for page three.
DB: Once again I decided to spend a ltittle more time designing the page layout for page three.
Above: Finished page three pencils.
DB: I've tried to make each panel more dynamic from the original rough page layout with the space that I have to work with.
Above: Page three inks.
Above: Finished page three artwork.
DB: Looking back on the page layout for this page. A round circle panel for panel six might have looked better and added a slightly more 'comica'l feeling to the page.
Above: Page four rough page layout.
DB: When drawing rough layouts I reread the panel discriptions again and look at any thumbnails I may have drawn on the actual script during the first and second readings of the story. Each panel takes me about two or three minutes to draw...basic details only.
Above: Finished page four with grey tones added and ready for lettering by Bolt 01.
Above: Rough page layouts for page five.
Above: Finished inks for page five.
Above: Finished page five artwork with grey tones and digital typeface added in panel four.
Above: Rough page layout for page seven.
Above: Finished inks for page seven.
Conclusion:
DB: I had just had some really bad news regarding someone close to me. Even though I'm only doing unpaid small-press artwork I take deadlines and 'project commitments' such as this script very seriously. After all as the saying goes 'Reputation is all.' To be honest I just wanted to get this script done so I could concentrate on personal matters. However if Paul is reading this post I would like to say that I felt it was a 'good' script and I was grateful to have something to take my mind off of things. I only hope that I did your story justice Paul.
Where to buy:
Dogbreath #32 can be bought online from the Futurequake webstore here...
https://www.futurequake.co.uk/dogbreath/
Above: Cover artwork by the wonderful 2000AD artist D’Isreali.
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