ravager_design

Ravager is a character I created a couple of years ago for a story I was writing for another website. The story was never completed but the character wasn’t forgotten. When I had to think of a someone who could be the first “villain” for Maverick to face, I looked at what I already had in my vast range of creations and almost immediately Ravager seemed like an ideal choice. Originally a sword wielding company man, Ravager was now a trigger happy mercenary.

His design didn’t take long to come up with. As you can see from the top right sketches (don’t ask), these were the only designs I did before coming up with the design you see on the far left. And with some minor tweeks, he became the character you first saw on page 2 of the first Maverick and “Friends” comic, Little Black Book.

Little Black Book – Page 2
Initial Sketch

page2_sketch1

Originally, this was going to be page 1 of my story and so it was the first page I drew in preparation for the site launch last August (2008). Unlike a lot of pages, I pretty much had an exact idea of what I wanted to draw before I put pencil to paper. So I went on to draw the page with a great starting point.

First Pencils

page2_pencils2

I got out my bristol board and redrew the page with more care on a larger scale. I used reference from a home shopping catalogue when it came time to draw Ravager’s binoculars. I then shared this with Gene and Kostmeyer to hear their thoughts. You can’t have a clear opinion of something you’ve spent a long time drawing. Looking at it with a fresh eye definitely helped as Gene pointed out something very wrong with my page.

Perspective!

page2_perspective

My page was distinctly lacking in perspective (which by the way I have declared as my mortal enemy). Gene helped me out here with some vanishing points which really helped to lift the quality of the page when it came time to add my inks. Thanks Gene!

Inking

cityscape_inks

I generally ink digitally because I find the erase tool invaluable. Pens smudge and if you get a line wrong, it can mess up a piece of artwork in a heartbeat. With digital inking, if I’m not happy with the way something looks I can delete the line work in seconds and start again. Easy peasy.

On a side note, buildings have to be the most annoying and boring thing in the world to draw. For this page, I only wanted to suggest the skyline so I didn’t go into too much detail, but still, dotting in the little windows took eons. It’s very hard to make them not look like crossword puzzles. Once that was over and the rest of the inks were underway, the page began to look good.

Inks completed

page2_inks

Huzzah! A success! With the inks all done, I could move onto lettering, although I didn’t do that until a little while later. Check out the little things on the desk – the cactus was fun to draw! Incidentally, I ink my work in Adobe Photoshop and use a pressure sensitive Wacom Intuos 3 graphics tablet. No comic artist should be without one! I certainly don’t miss the days of messy indian inks and a dip pen and brush!

Lettering done.

page 2

I letter all my pages in Adobe Illustrator. Putting text in boxes is easy. It wasn’t until it came time to do word balloons with tails that I went running to Gene for a crash course. As it turns out, Gene is a wonderful teacher and so I picked it up pretty quickly. Thanks again, Gene!

All done now and Ravager has made his comic debut! …and a whole 4 pages before Maverick too! He’s a sly one.

Original Thumbnails

For a bit of fun, here’s my original thumbnails for pages 1-8 of Maverick and “Friends” – Little Black Book. Some of these pages were followed quite closely, others changed dramatically. But it’s good to put your rough ideas down on paper before starting on your pages otherwise you can waste a lot of precious time just staring at your empty bristol board not knowing where the hell to start – I speak from experience. A blank page can be incredibly intimidating if you don’t have any idea what you’re drawing. This is definitely the best way.
sketch1 sketch2
sketch3 sketch4
sketch5 sketch6
sketch7 sketch8

Hope you’ve enjoyed looking through the stages of Maverick Page 2 and the introduction of Ravager!