A few months ago I was looking through some of my old drawings. Ones I did while I was a kid up to when I was in collage. I found my original sketches for a character named “The Hunter”.  I had redesigned his history and biography a few years ago, so I decide to redesign his look too. Want to see the original designs and the rough redesign check out my earlier post The Hunter – Character Design – From Sketches to Final Ink – Part 1. I was very pleased with the redesign so I decided to create an action posed pin-up of my character.

For the past year I’ve been digitally inking my pencils. I usually use Adobe Illustrator using vector points. I like using the pen tool to create crisp sharp/smooth lines. You can see a great example of this in a past post Comic Book Digital Inking Techniques with Illustrator Vector Anchor Points. But for this inking I wanted go old school and use a real brush and pen. A process I do not used very often. I had a real blast inking it by hand!

I didn’t want to loose my pencils so I scanned the original and reprinted them on card stock. I used Adobe Photoshop to replaced the original black lines to blue lines. This way it would be easier for me to ink them. Check out the difference between the original pencils and what I inked. The Hunter – Character Design – From Sketches to Final Ink – Part 2.

Here are my final inks of “The Hunter” I had a real blast with this piece. I started with very rough sketches to tight pencils and finally to a finished inked piece. In my next blog post (that’s right I have one more to go) I’ll show you what I did to vectorize my final inks so I can print them at any size with out loosing quality of the inks. – Shazam!

This year I participated in the annual 24 Hour Comic. The challenge is to create 24 pages of comic book with in 24 hours. This was the second time I’ve done it. I really had a great time doing it too. At times it felt like I wasn’t going to finish, but i did…..with 3 minutes to spare (WhaZa!). It has been a very popular and fun exercise for both writers and artists. The idea is to come with not preconceived ideas of what your going to create, and make a 24 page comic!

So here it is, my 24 Hour Comic entitled “infiltration” written, penciled, and inked by me Ralph Contreras in 24 hours and 57 minutes on October 3rd to 4th, for the 2009 24 Hour Comics Day! I did my pages with widescreen panels, I think it adds a great element to the storytelling.

The Half Way Point!
Participating in 24 Hour Comics Day. Here I am 12 hours into the challenge. Not as far ahead as I had planned. But still having fun. I originally planned to have the comic done within the 1st 12 hours. I’m actually on page 6 and 7 at this point. Not even the half way mark. I honestly didn’t think I would finish, but I new I wasn’t going to give up. (I did finish the 24 hour comic, at exactly 11:57am…. with 3 minutes to spare. Shazam!)

As I started to fall back on the pages and the time was moving forward, I thought what can I do to catch up and finish. I decided to work on the pages very similar to Marvel Comics new format of widescreen comics. That’s where you place your panels stretched out through 2 pages. Like several widescreen shots. Marvel’s title Dark Avengers is very well know for this.

Once I decided to use this technique I was able to catch up. It gave me the great opportunity to create some very dynamic angle shots. Once I gained my confidence that I could finish the comic the story just flowed out of me. It’s full of action and fight scenes. It was really a fun comic to do. The story ends up with solders, ninjas, villains and even a giant monster.

My progress was posted on a few sites during the event. On both the local and national 24 Hour comic blog sites. Here are the links to these sites. 24 Hours from New Mexico Blog – Hours 14 through 18 from New Mexico Official Nation 24 Hour Comic Book Blog – Hours 14 through 18 from New Mexico

This year I participated in 24 Hour Comics Day again. It was held on October Saturday the 3rd to 4th. I had such a blast with it last year there was no question I would do it again. The goal is to create 24 comic pages in 24 hours. It’s a very challenging exercise. You come to the table with no idea of what you are going to write and draw, from there you create  a 24 page story.

Last year there was a place to participate in 24 Hour Comic in Santa Fe NM (that’s where I live right now), but this year the closest place was in Albuquerque, NM. I decided to stay home and work on the 24 hour comic in my drawing table. I was committed to participate no matter where I did it.

The first few hours were tough, the year before I created my 24 hour comic with the help of my girlfriend as my inker. This year I was working completely solo. I was finding it hard to find a fast rhythm. I was really digging what I was coming up with, but I was just a little slower then I originally wanted to be.

My girlfriend helped me out by updating my Twitter, Facebook & Flickr pages. One of the Twitter updates caught the attention of the group in Albuquerque. They were updating their blog dedicate to the 24 Hour comic and told me to send them some photos of my stuff. You can check out the 1st of 2 post showing my work progress during the event. 24 Hours from New Mexico blog (Hour 13 1/2 from New Mexico). What was cool is the blog post was picked up by the Official Nation 24 Hour Comic Book Blog too. – (Hour 13 1/2 from New Mexico)

I’ve wanted to be a comic book artist as long as I’ve been reading comics. To be able to play with the heroes I read about. Like most aspiring artists I looked to books to show me the right way to draw comics. How the comic figure is drawn and how to create those awesome fight scenes. I’ve bought and read so many “How to Draw Comic” books I’ve completely lost count. The very first “How to Draw Comics” book I every bought was How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is a great introduction book to the world of comic book drawing.  Written by Stan Lee and comic artist John Buscema.  This book teaches you the tools and terms used when creating a comic book. From drafting table, pencils, erasers, inking to the definition of a worms eye view.

It covers basic perspective drawing techniques for object, characters, and composition. Probably one of the best books that teaches how to draw characters with 8 half heads. This book has great explanations of the importance of figure exaggeration when drawing action and normal conversation between figures.

The most important lesson I learning from this book was how to draw sequential art, that is how to tell a story through pictures.  It shows the wrong way and the right way, what’s great about these examples is it shows you different ways to tell the same story though panel drawings.

If you are interested in learning how to create a comic book, the basics of comic book drawing or know some one who does I would totally recommend How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

I give this book a 5 out of 5 pencils rating:

I’ve been very active on Twitter for the past few months. I’ve actually maxed out the amount of people I can follow (which is 2001).  I would say that about 80% of the people I follow are comic book artists, writers, and fellow fans. Well a few weeks ago I  saw a contest for an original drawing from comic book artist Eric Merced through his twitter account @eric_merced. “1st and 5th to tweet a character for me to draw on live stream…” I tweeted my favorite character Captain Marvel and was the 1st to enter and win the contest!

The cool thing about the live stream was I got to see him draw it live. Eric Merced talked about why he liked the character of Captain Marvel while he sketched him out. It was really interesting to see the process he used when going from sketch to drawing and finally to inking. He also had a question/answer session with other people watching via a chat widget. The original drawing is 7″ x 5″ and he gave it to me, which was very awesome of him!

As a fun added pulse the mailer that the drawing came in had a cool drawing of Captain Marvel too.
Thanks Eric Merced for an awesome original drawing! Shazam!

I’ve received several requested to show the steps I used to create my digital inking of the Fantastic Four pin up I did of artist Ariel Padilla’s pencils.  I was looking for some art to ink and found the pencils on his DeviantArt page. This was a practice exercise I gave myself in the inking process of comic book art using Adobe Illustrator. I’ve been a graphic designer for over 9 years but this was the first time I used my design knowledge for comic book inking.

Points & Paths: Example 1

For this self assignment I decided to use Adobe Illustrator for inking the pin-up. I had used photoshop for a previous piece earlier I did of Batman 2.0, a character redesign. I had fun with that illustration but this time I wanted to do this digital inking in vector format. Why choose vector verse bitmap? Well in a vector image it is made up of anchor point that are connected by paths (lines) that connect them. A vector image can be re-sized without loss of quality to the illustration. So basically you can re-size the image as small or as large as you’d like without pixelation, it will keep it’s sharpness no mater the size.  Which is really neat.

Points & Paths: Example 2

For this illustration I choose to use my anchor points to create only straight paths (lines). I didn’t use any curved lines. The cool thing about using anchor points and paths is that you can make curved paths, resulting in less points This is shown in Points & Paths: Example 2. So why didn’t I use curve paths? Well honestly it was a self exercise to see if I could do it. I wanted to create the curved lines through straight lines. I found it to be a fun challenge.

Points & Paths: Example 3

I did not create lines or outlines of the original pencils. What I did was look at each line as a shape. I could have easy used the brush tool in Illustrator, but I found I actually had more control of what I wanted to achieve by using the pen tool.

With the technique I like to use of anchor points and paths I am able to get a type of jagged smooth shape. The strength of anchor points is you can use as many or as little points as you’d like to create your lines or shapes. I’ve illustrated this in Points & Paths: Example 3.

Points & Paths: Example 4

After I created the shape from the pencils, I colored it in with black. I’ve shown this in Points & Paths: Example 4. As you can see it’s a piece of a puzzle that makes up the inking. These shapes help to create the feel I was looking for when digitally inking this drawing. This technique really works well when inking the Thing’s rocky skin.

I have included more example of the anchor points and paths technique I use in inking these pencils. In Points & Paths: Example 5, we see how the wavy fire on Human Torch can be created without using curved lines. Every anchor point in the flames helps to create the illusion of line weight, depth, and movement.

In Points & Paths: Example 6, I’ve shown how I created what looks to be a line on the Invisible Woman’s arm. It is actually a curved shape created with paths. It is a shape that includes the bottom line of her arm and the shadows around her neck. You can see her hands and the background are already colored in.

Although this technique might not seem to be the most efficient, it allows for a lot of control. Looking at each line as a shape helped me to create a type of line work I would not have achieved otherwise.

Points & Paths: Example 5

Points & Paths: Example 6

This was my first comic book digital inking using Adobe Illustrator with the anchor points and paths technique. I have done a few more since this one. Although I have used curved line in those illustrations. This was a fun self exercise in learning to digitally ink the work of some else. I am very happy with the way this illustration came out, and I’ll continue to use Adobe Illustrator to digitally ink comic book pencils.

A few months ago I decided to draw Vader’s Fist, the 501st Legion. I’m a huge Star Wars fan and wanted to draw something cool. I usually draw comic book characters but I think it was a fun change to draw some sci-fi stuff. The 501st Legion are cool because they are in the prequels, the original trilogy and the extended universe. They are the highest most elite Stormtroopers in the Empire. First starting off as the best clone troopers then as Darth Vader’s personal squad. Check out this article at Wookipedia to learn more about them.

This is my final digital inking of my original 11″x17″ drawing. I used my graphic design skills in adobe illustrator to ink the 501.  The original drawing was done with an HB woodless pencil. I  posted it in an earlier blogpost, Vader’s Fist – The 501st Legion – Pencil Drawing. Check it out if you’d like. What’s really cool is if you do a Google image search for “Vader’s Fist” the original pencils show up on page one.

For this digital inking I decided to use Adobe Illustrator. I’ve done inking in Adobe Photoshop before, but I find that I really like the way my digital inks look in illustrator. In illustrator your inking are in vector, this allows you to enlarge the image with not pixilation. So if I really wanted to I could make a print the size of a building and it would look awesome and sharp.

The tool I like to use in illustrator is the pen tool. I do have a wacom table, but I feel I have more control with the mouse and pen tool. It lets me create a smooth/jagged line in my piece. I work with anchor points to create curved lines, straight lines and solid shapes. There was some line work were I did use the brush tool with my wacom tablet, but most of this digital inking was done with the pen tool.

I’ve very happy with the way this digital inking came out. Ever since I moved to Santa Fe last year, I’ve felt a real recharge in my art work. The penciling and inking of Vader’s Fist, the 501st Legion is a great example of this. I had a real blast inking it. Shazam!

I created this comic book in 23 hours with the help of my girlfriend (she inked the pages) for 24 Hour Comic 2008. Click on any of the pages to see larger. If you start with the 1st page you can read the whole comic. Shazam!

This was the first year I participated in the 24 Comic Book Day. The goal was to create a full 24 page comic book in 24 consecutive hours. It was organized by 7000 BC and True Believers our local comic shop. There were over 20 artists who drew their own comics. We all met at Warehouse 21. A great community center for youth and the arts here in Santa Fe. There was even a small exhibition showcasing the comics we created.

I had a blast doing this and will definitely take part again this year. I can’t wait!

With the original Batman’s death in Final Crises there were many theories of who would take on the mantel. With the conclusion of Battle for the Cowl we learn that Dick Grayson officially become the new Batman. Grayson is the original Robin who has been going by the the name of Nightwing for over 20 years now. In the new ongoing comic Batman and Robin “Batman: Reborn” written by Grant Morrison we get to see Grayson as the new Batman with Bruce Wayne’s son Damian as the new Robin.

A few months ago I did a character redesign of Batman. It was for an on-line contest by Project Rooftop tilted Batman 2.0: The Dynamic Do-Over. Check out the contest winners.  I’ve communicated with a few of the other contestants by Twitter, Deviant art and personal blogs. Although my redesign didn’t place I had a real blast with this project.

I posted my final redesign in a previous post. I’ve decided to post my sketches and show the stages of my work for fun.

These were my initial sketches of the redesign. I was looking for a way to incorporate Dick Graysons’ personality form his Nightwing costume into his new Batman costume. Playing with the bat symbol going across his chest, the colors of the suit and adding more compartments for the bat gadgets on his boots and gloves.

Here is my final pencil drawing. I had a lot of fun with this adding shadows and highlights.

This is my actual first digital inking of a comic character I’ve ever done. You’d think I would have done it before being a graphic designer for over 10 years. But I always seemed to keep my computer design skills and my comic penciling separate. For this project I decided to go for it and try inking in photoshop. It was fun and I think I did a good job. I’ve actually started digitally inking in Illustrator now. I like working with vector because the  inking never loses sharpness.

With the inking done I moved on to creating grey tone flats. Flats are done to help the digital coloring of the peice. this way you can select a whole area and color it quickly. For fun I tried different color schemes for Batman’s new look.

This is the final stage of my Batman 2.0 character redesign. Again this was my first comic digital coloring. So I’m very proud of how it came out. The drawing is competently colored with shadows and highlights.

I learned alot with this project, but most importantly I had alot of fun.  – Shazam!