ROM: Spaceknight #1: Page Recreation

ROM: Spaceknight #1, Page 1

Here is the original 

And here is my recreation of the page:

I have very fond memories of ROM: Spaceknight--a comic from my misspent youth in the early 1980's, so I wanted to do another ROM painting.  The "Arrival" scene was always one of my favorites.

For those who are interested, here is the usual process...

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Step One:  First, I primed a 15" x 20" piece of #215 Crescent Board with a mixture of size (glue) and gesso.  Then, I measured off the 12" x 16" painting area, doing the panel lines in Sharpie.  For the series of three panels at top, I extended the panel lines outside the painting area, as I was pretty sure the panel lines would be painted over (I was right, and the panel edges were, indeed, painted over.)  :-)

I then used a blue-lead pencil to draw out the page. I used to do a lot of drawings with blue-line for pen-and-ink work and always liked it.  I recently found one of my blue pencils and decided to use it.

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Step Two:  I begin by laying down some color with acrylic paints...

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Step Three:  More painting...

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Step Four:  I taped off the panel series at the top of the screen.  I painted the edges with some clear acrylic medium to keep the edge as sharp as possible and to prevent paint from bleeding under it.  For the space nebula effect, I used a spray bottle of water and white paint and built up several layers of wet-on-wet paint.  When it was dried, I went over top of it with some watered down blue paint to color it.  Lastly, I took some black paint and reworked some of the edges.

Also, I wasn't paying attention and somehow got it in my head that the second panel was showing ROM entering the Earth's atmosphere, but after I read the caption again, I realized it should be much closer to the ground.  Of course, I didn't realize this until I was finished painting the panel with Earth from space (including clouds and everything) and had to redo the whole thing.  Sigh...

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Step Five:  Finished painting!  I repainted the second panel, finished up some of the fire effects (well, some of them could be better, IMHO), and pushed some of the shadows and highlights.

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Step Six:  I added lettering in PhotoShop and called it DONE!  I also sent a copy of the last panel on to Anthony with the Re-Paneled Blog.

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This was painted with Acrylic on 12" x 16" sized and gessoed #215 Crescent Board

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Batman: Year One #1 - Page Recreation

Here's the original page from Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's "Batman: Year One":

This was done as a Christmas present to a good friend of mine, Dave M, who is a big Batman fan.  I have another recreation of a Batman cover I am doing for his birthday... Which was two months ago.  Sigh...  I have to get that one done SOON, or it will be his Christmas present for next year.  And, of course, when I get it done, y'all will see it here.

Here is the process (click on each picture to embiggen):

STEP ONE:  Pencils and some beginning washes being laid down...

STEP TWO:  More watercolor washes and underpainting...

STEP THREE:  Almost done...  More color and I added some Titanium White watercolor to go back over for a smoke effect.  Luckily, the white watercolor I have is relatively opaque, so it covered pretty well.

STEP FOUR:  Hooray!  The painting part of the page is done.  I used more Titanium White watercolor to add the rest of the smoke/debris in panel #1.  And, being not-so-subtle, I deviated from the original and added a vaguely Batman-shaped reflection to the brazier lid in panel #2.  I corrected some coloring on panel #4, with the brazier being covered and pushed some of the darks.

STEP FIVE:  I added the lettering.  I printed it out on my laser printer and then glued it down to the paper using rubber cement.  I know I said it felt like "cheating" in a previous post... oh, well.  :-)  To quote Walt Whitman from "Song of Myself":

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

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The page was done with watercolor on 12" x 16" 140# cold-press Waterford watercolor paper.

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Also, I took Panel One and submitted it to the fantastically fun Repaneled Blog:  Be sure to visit Anthony's site!

UPDATE: It is scheduled to be posted tomorrow, on Thursday, June 9th, 2011.  Hooray!  :-)

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