How a Hereville panel is made
Here’s an example from Hereville 3 (in progress). It’s from page 45, a panel in which Mirka is running fast down the porch stairs.
As you can see, it involves work not only by me, but also by my wonderful collaborators Adrian Wallace (who draws the environments) and Jake Richmond (who does the colors). We also use a computer model of Mirka’s house which was created years ago by Mr. Matthew Nolan.
Transcript of image:
In the script I wrote, Mirka was in the house, and then the next scene began with her running through the woods.
When I laid it out, I thought it would be better storytelling to include a transition panel. So I scribbled a little stick-figure of Mirka running down the porch stairs.
Then I did a slightly more detailed version, so that I could look at the page layout and see if I liked it, and also so that folks like my editor and Adrian Wallace (who draws the environments) could understand what I intended.
Months later, after I had completed writing and laying out the entire book, I did an “underdrawing” showing Mirka’s pose and (hopefully) correctly sketching her proportions.
In the underdrawing, I drew Mirka lifting her skirt as she runs down the stairs, which helps make her look more desparate (and is also more realistic).
Using the underdrawing as a guide, I did a much tighter drawing of Mirka running down the stairs. And using THAT drawing as a guide, I drew Mirka again, in the final black lines that get printed in the comic book.
At that point, I send the page to Adrian Wallace, who draws the environments around Mirka. One tool Adrian uses to create his drawings are 3d computer models of the environments. Adrian often creates the models himself, but in this case he used a model of Mirka’s house which was created years ago by Matthew Nolan.
Adrian merges his background with my drawing, and then the whole thing is sent to Jake Richmond. Jake first goes through and does flat colors on everything, using a horribly limited color palette I chose in consultion with Jake.
After Jake finishes laying down the flat colors, he goes over the colors again, this time adding highlights and shading.
And finally, the completed panel: