Hi! I'm Howie Noel and I'm the creator, artist and writer of the new graphic novel Mr. Scootles.
I chose to feature this page from Mr. Scootles because it allows me to show all of the stages I go through during my creative process. This page deal with Jason, the hero of the book, attending the funeral of his roommate. I usually don't type out a script since I'm the artist and writer so I'll either just write down the dialogue or do a thumbnail featuring the, placement of figures, composition, etc.
As you can see in the picture it's a very simple sketch that is really just meant to remind me where to place things. A lot of things change from the thumbnail to our next step: The final penciled version.
For the final pencils page I try to pencil pretty tightly even though I'm the inker. I like to have a clear image to go from especially if there are tiny details I want to include. I hand draw my word balloons and text balloons too. For the cematary I wanted it to be based on the Evans City Cemetary which is famous for being in Night of the Living Dead.
I've visited it several times (even once filming a zombie short film there!) since my in-laws live nearby and I have a lot of reference photos. I just didn't draw the snow in the photo obviously. Another fun fact is Jason's parents in the scene are based on my parents.
Once the pencils are completed, I move onto inking!
I used a rapidograph pen to ink Mr. Scootles. I try to correct any errors I see in the pencils in the inking stage as well making sure that I vary my line work. Once it's all inked I scan it into Photoshop and set it up for coloring.
In Photoshop, I really wanted to set up a mood in the scene with the coloring. Hopefully you can see that it's a bit of a cloudy, sad Fall day. I also felt the cold colors would help the Gatekeeper stand out more with her blonde hair and skirt separating her from the background. After the coloring is completed I letter it using my own font and then the page is complete!
Thank you for taking the time to check out how I create a page from Mr. Scootles! I hope you get a chance to check out the book too.
Howie C. Noel
http://www.hcnoel.com
http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Scootles-H-C-Noel/dp/1934985031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223510676&sr=8-1
http://www.myspace.com/hcnoel
http://hcnoel.deviantart.com
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