Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Rex Banning - Lawyer in the Stars pencils

Why hello internet! I have here some things to share! I got the opportunity to work with Conor McCreery and my pal Brian Prince on a comic for an anthology called MONSTROSITY II. Here's a link to the Kickstarter and I'll share some of the pencils for the comic.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/408859396/monstrosity-ii





On this team, I was the penciler, toner and letterer. I worked on these pages in the middle of my last quarter at SCAD and I think they turned out pretty well. Conor was our writer and Brian was the inker on this comic. I hope that if you can, you'll support the kickstarter and help this book get off the ground.

I don't really know what else to say without giving away too much. If you like lawyers, space, frog lawyers, frog judges, and frog lawyers, this is the comic for you! Did I mention frog lawyers?

Art wise, this was an experiment for me in a few ways. On this comic I was using Stillman and Birn Alpha paper, which is 100 lb. drawing paper. I've been using S&B's Beta paper on my pages for the Curse of the Eel, which are 180 lb sheets of watercolor paper. Texture wise, the Alpha is a little more toothy but it's less heavy than the Beta, so I wanted to see what changes it made to my drawings. This may seem like pointless trouble, but part of what I love about drawing is overcoming a new challenge or trying out a new method of working. I'd get bored doing the same thing each and every time so this stuff is fun for me.

Turns out the Alpha is perfect for comics provided you don't be too rough with it. The vellum surface is great for my pencil hardnesses (B and F) and it didn't leave any ghosts when I was erasing things away. The only downside is that because the paper is thinner, it is more likely to buckle under you if you erase too hard, but if you move your eraser outwards and away from you, that's not even an issue. So yeah, perfect for comics! I didn't ink this one, but I've tested nibs, markers, watercolor and brush inking on the alpha and it's brilliant at all of it. I'm considering actually switching from the Beta to Alpha for my more regular projects and using Beta for things that require heavy watercolor use. The Alpha is also a bit cheaper to buy by the sheet so I can get the pages for a bit less, which is always a plus.

Other than that, there's not much else to say other than: Thank you Conor and Brian for letting me part of your team! I'm hoping we can work together again, and I hope everyone else gives that Kickstarter a little love, since it'd be cool to have another anthology with my name in it out so soon after I graduated!