LEGO Exo-Force Comic: Step-By-Step

I'm not allowed to show any of my recent work yet so I thought it would be cool to post a comparison of all the different stages it takes to create each comic page. I tend not to scan in my pencils very often since I keep them fairly rough, but I was able to find an old Exo-Force comic that had decent pencils!

1) Layouts: LEGO gives me a script which includes a panel by panel breakdown of the action they want. I make really rough sketches to show how I will compose the page. You can see that I roughed in the word balloons too- it is important to make sure you have enough room for the text!

2) Pencils: LEGO reviews the roughs and provides me with comments about things they want changed or fixed. I take those comments and create the pencils, which are drawn larger than the intended print size to help make the images sharper and more detailed. This is when I make sure all the characters and products are the right size and really look like the LEGO sets.

3) Inks: I am provided with more comments from the pencils, usually minor things like product inconsistencies. I incorporate any changes and then trace the pencils with ink pens and brushes. I usually add a little more detail and try to tighten up the overall drawing. I then scan the drawing into my computer for the final step...

4) Coloring: This is the last chance LEGO has to make any major comments because it is time consuming (expensive) to make changes after the image is colored. I start by filling in flat colors and then I add shading and textures to give some dimension.

That's it! LEGO takes the final color art and overlays the word balloons with text and sound effects. The whole process takes me about 3 days per page.