Here are a couple of pages from an ABC Warriors story I drew ten years ago. Around this period these characters were usually being drawn by the genius that is Henry Flint, but luckily for me I was unaware of what he’d done with the strip and so I was able to tell myself I was doing a pretty good job.
By this time I was using Photoshop and thought I’d hit on a plan that would finally end the tyranny of the blank sheet of paper – I’d do the inking on printouts of the pencils, if I made a mistake I’d just print it out again.
What could possibly go wrong…
I love Joe Pineapples, a real pleasure to draw. Wonderful piece of character design by Kev O’Neill.
18 June 2011 at 13:43
Great pages.You plow through a lot of graphite?D.
18 June 2011 at 13:48
It's great to see your process. All the different choices.Beautiful compositions too, one of the things I've always admired about your work is your unusual but alway appropriate sense of composition."The tyranny of the blank piece of paper", a very true phrase but the computer frees you up to be tyrannised by endless choice. Well that's what I find anyhow.Thanks for these—Peter
18 June 2011 at 13:50
thanks Mike for showing your process, i just love seening the different stages of artists work. look forward to seening more.j
18 June 2011 at 18:32
Aaargh! This is beautiful work. I'd dearly love to see you do another ABCs story. I bought the original art for the page where Pineapples prepares to shoot Blackblood, many years ago. It's the thing I'll save if my house ever catches fire….after my wife and daughter (cough)
19 June 2011 at 19:57
I love to see process shots. These are wonderful. Great to see the pencils under the inks. Can we see some more please?
19 June 2011 at 20:24
I'm pretty sure I spent a sizeable portion of my childhood tracing your drawings of Joey Pineapples.
20 June 2011 at 13:40
Truly fascinating!
21 June 2011 at 10:20
Wonderful stuff, love seeing works in progress. I scan/print out my pencils as bluelines, for similar reasons to your own. I'm not sure it's any faster and whilst it does provide a certain safety net it does also, as Peter said earlier, add limitless possibilities for tweaking in Photoshop… very distracting!Regardless, as always your drawing and sense of design is amazing.
22 June 2011 at 14:57
Drawing, composition, sense of design, storytelling, all inspiring. Thanks for posting this amazing work!
23 June 2011 at 13:18
You're all very kind!
4 September 2011 at 14:30
@ Simon Fraser, I think like that too, about my house catching fire and what needs to be saved. Sod the heirlooms and the photos. Mick's work will be first,….. after the wife and kids, of course, (Ugh-hum!).
20 February 2012 at 10:03
great to see them again as actual robots rather than the weird robo-muscle the biz brought to these characters back in the day.