Oh God, Finally!

JUST got back from DICE con in Dublin. And when I say "just", I mean 3 days ago, but thats how long it took me to unwind and get with my feet back on the ground:

YES, it was THAT good.

I got like, a MILLION things to announce and tell, but I promised myself I wouldnt allow myself more than 10 mins online today (LOADS and LOADS of pages to do), so I'm just posting the smaple pages I had the pleasure and privilege of showing to CB Cebulski, of Marvel fame. He liked them apparently ;)
As usual, open on separate tab to see them MUCH bigger.

Inks:

Pencils:

And these are older, but he liked them too so I thought to post them again, for whoever hadnt seen 'em:

Cool, Im afraid thats really everything for now, I'll come back soon with a LOT of news, images and probably a name change to the blog. I'll explain later.

Peace out.

LuCa.

PAGES!

So, I got a busy and all with some things Im doing at the moment, but  got a moment (it actually took the whole fucking morning) to scan these pencil pages and prepare them for inking (turn them into blueline, fit them in a print template, add digital panel borders). Which means, finally theyre here.

I posted a long/useless process entry some time ago, with explanations on how I work from layouts to preliminary sketches to finished pencils. Its here.

Well, now you can finally compare those with the finished pencils. Inks are coming too. "When?" You ask. Fuck you.

Again, theyre from a collaboration with the VERY talented Dave Hendrick, hopefully the first of many more to come.

Btw, Ive also been penciling pages for a 20-smthing pages long crime story that should be out hopefully this year from Markosia publishing. Its gonna be inked by somebody else, which is new for me an Im kinda curious/excited to see the final pages. Im basically 2/3rds into the pages, and once Im over, Im gonna post the whole thing here. Like, the whole story, from start to finish. Unlettered and not inked, but hey, better than nothing. 

Thats it, now Im back to doing stuff.

L.

No, Im not dead + Finally! PAGES! And a lot of them!

Been criminally absent from these shores for a while now.

In my defense, you have no idea what PAIN and SUFFERING are if you never moved from one flat to another before. Took me more than two weeks to be back 100% operational in my new place. Plus, of course, an almost-penumonia which left me bed-ridden for more than a week. But now Im better.

What have I been up to in the meanwhile? PAGES, finally!

I finally got around a personal project of mine that MIGHT see the light earlier that I thought (at least in this) first incarnation and whaddayaknow, its the same project that gave this very blog its name:

Ladies and gentlemen, without much further ado, I hereby introduce you to... SPECTOR! The trailer! Pencils and inks!

Still not finished (the complete mini-story is 6 pages, so Im not THAT behind) and YES, that is my first two-pages spread, which took more time and pain to physically build and tape than actually draw...

Id like to explain more the concept and inspiration of the whole thing, but if youre familiar with the AMAZING fellow Italian artist Francesco Francavilla and what hes doing with Black Beetle at the moment, well, my project basically comes from the same humid and pulpy backstreet of pop culture ;)

Anyway!

+ BONUS! Two pieces I did to get in the right mood BEFORE the mini story: it started with one simple scene, imagined as a one-page teaser/ad for the story, then I decided to do another as a story-telling exercise in how to tell the same sequence in a different way. Then I decided to color them coz hey, why not. My first proper foray in to coloring. Cant shake the feeling its a bit amatorial but they were fun. And just to keep with the exercise, lettering is on its way!

Take care,

L.

"Come closer, kids, and I'll tell you more about my process..."

So, another rather big gap of updates...

Though I havent been slacking around, your honour, I swear.

Im in the process of drawing a short story written by the REALLY cool Dave Hendrick

Really fun and open script, a pleasure to work on, seriously.

Anyway, I thought Id take the chance to talk more about my process to those 2 or 3 chronic insomniacs who probably follow this blog (IF anyone does, that is).

After I read the script I do my thumbnails, usually on templates I saved on photoshop or even on the edges of the script papers, if Im struck by sudden enlightenment (it almost NEVER happens). At this point the focus is on making choices about how to tell the story in terms of camera angles and shots, and the drawing itself is little more than stick figures, probably only fully comprehensible to me. But I heard thats pretty standard, so I dont worry too much. Theyre around 5cm x 7,5cm for now. Anyway, for example the layouts for the first 4 pages for this story looked like this:

Once Ive sent them to the writer/editor and got approval, I go back to them and "fix" them: add digital panel borders, appropriate photo refs or 3D SketchUp models that I either make myself (for simpler things) or snatch off their AMAZING library, perspective grids when needed, bla, bla and fucking bla.

From here I used to simply print them to A3 and lightbox them for the penciling stage, but lately I slightly changed approach: since at this early stage of my career I really wanna keep ALL my pencils to show on my portfolio it's important that theyre pretty clean and tight, so I added an intermediate stage of pre-penciling (or roughs, or prelims) in which I just go loosely to block the shapes and get anatomy and gestures right, so that Im free to erase and properly ABUSE the paper to a pulp until Im happy, without having to worry about how the page is gonna look to posterity. These are A4 coz I found out that at this stage, still working out the balance and "elegance" of figures and postures, the smaller is STILL the better for me. The roughs for these 4 pages look like this:

Once Im happy with these (and Im usually NEVER happy with them, but OK) I scan them again, blow them up to full artwork size and print them on A3 paper. Then I lightbox them AGAIN, but this time free to focus on nuances and details like textures, facial expressions and having proper, nice graphite marks overall.

Because dealing with deadlines is ALL about creating unnecessary, redundant steps in the workflow, isnt it?

Also, OF COURSE this post is incomplete for now, coz Im still not finished with the roughs stage so I have no pencils whatsoever to show, but theyre coming. I swear.

And thats it. Thanx for watching and all that ;)

L.

Portfolio pages - X-Force

Also, just came back from a really cool weekend at the Thought Bubble convention in Leeds, in which I -among other things- managed to score a portfolio review with Marvel Comics editor Stephen Wacker, so I spent the previous week preparing smthing to show. Doesnt matter how much stuff Ive got going on, doing superhero pages is always fun and a VERY welcome break from day-to-day projects.

Anyway.

Heres the results: a 4-pages short of a completely made-up roster of one of my fav X-books "X-Force". Since these were just to showcase my art and didnt need to be in continuity, I decided to have fun redesigning some of my fav mutants to make my own all-star team ;)

Wolverine is a staple, OF COURSE, and Ive always been fascinated by the cool Errol Flynn-like version of Nightcrawler in the Warren Ellis/Carlos Pacheco BEAUTIFUL Excalibur run. And Domino is just TOO cool.

So, here they are.

Thats it. At least 3 different pencils on Bristol boards.

L.

"Finally: American Vampire! Now with more blood!"

After a STUPIDLY long absence from this blog, due to working on several little things at the same time, I can finally breathe a bit and catch up with posting up here.

So, I can finally show some test pages that I did for the REALLY cool Vertigo editor Mark Doyle after meeting him at DICE con in Dublin. Mark sent me the script of an early issue of one of my fav books, go figure -American Vampire- and asked me to do a couple of pages from there. Again, just the fact that he found some time in his (I can only imagine) uber-busy schedule to write an AMAZINGLY detailed feedback email was astonishing, and of course hugely helpful for me to understand how some things I had never considered before can be added (or removed) to make for a better page.

Well, so here are the pages, in pencils...

...and inks (again, W&N 7 no.2 brush and a couple of small nibs):

Obviously, had a GREAT time with these. Hope to do some more soon, its great for the ego ;)

L.

WIP #2

More of the same:

L.