So this is how my comics start out.

They fill up any scrap of paper I can get my hands on. The thought is if I can purge my silly ideas onto napkins/sketchbooks/notepads enough I might find an idea worth using. This sketch was one of 30 I did on my morning train ride on Chicago's Metra. I find the closer I am to being asleep the better I write, so mornings are perfect writing times.



A few days will pass and now I have the clarity to decide which of the crap I'll highlight. For the Pixelton strips I'm drawing everything into the computer using my fab new Wacom tablet. On average, an inked page will take about 4-5 hours. I usually pull up a documentary online to help the time move faster.



In a cruel twist of fate the coloring process takes about this long as well. In this case we now have the color layer over the Black & White art, but it wasn't doing it for me...



So I added in the trademark DigDug ground and called it a day. Hooray for useless pop-culture references!




Finally I lay in the type and word balloons. If I've learned one thing when not sketching these out fully it is: Always leave more space for text then you'd ever imagine! There is nothing worse then needing to redraw a section (or shudder, a page) once you've run through the illustration gauntlet.

See you Thursday!