Making of Fixed Planet Issue 02 Cover

Originally i think the idea was to try out blue lining here... and maybe inking on the computer. But, as with all my attempts at digital inking, I lost patience and got frustrated pretty quick. I realised that I like the quality of the blue pencil line too much, and wasn't going to beat it... So I worked with it!

 

I made the line black, and set about painting the image up to make a tasty cover image. For this, I worked in black and white only at first, to get the values just right. Once I'd achieved this and the image looked right enough, I added in the colour, some texture and effects.

See the final image here!

Page 11 of Fixed Planet

In case it isn't screaming "obvious" in front of speed lines and calling out for another hit Anime series.... Page 011 of Fixed Planet aimed to mimic a page from the Shonen Jump manga weekly from Japan.

I love how the different stories have a slightly different coloured paper, so this page is tinted green, and textured like the extra thin, newsprint like paper that makes up the chunky omnibuses.

I tried to rough the piece as a complete page, but i couldn't keep the scale in check on some panels, and toatlly screwed the art up on most.

Here's a comp of the roughs before I got to inking:

 

 

Pages 04, 05, 06, 07

The aim here was to combine a few different approaches in order to achieve some nicely stylised images.

The lines are painted with Chinese ink, using mostly flat/ square brushes. I wanted to try and keep the feel of that natural line and the natural texture that comes with painting in inks.

For the colour, I wanted to try using a very restricted and muted palette.

I think it works!