ScottChantler.com

"Tower of Treasure" Colour Process

2009-07-10T21:11:00.007-04:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the first book in my Three Thieves series represents my first foray into colouring my own comics work (I colour my own illustration work, of course, but that's a different kettle of fish entirely from creating colour palettes and "lighting" for a 112-page dramatic story).

Here's a glimpse into the process I've been using, which was arrived at by a lot of trial and error, as well as talking to and reading about how fellow cartoonists whom I respect have tackled the job. I don't claim to be an expert on any of this, but it's been fun playing with new tools, and I've been happy with the results so far (and, thankfully, has so has my editor!)

First, I scan the inked page into Photoshop, bringing art that has so far only been touched by traditional tools into a digital environment:

Then, on a layer behind the line art, I do the flat colours. Everything is coloured its bright, fully-saturated daytime colour, regardless of the lighting in the scene. Of all the steps, this one is the most time-consuming:

Then I use a custom brush tool to digitally "paint" in a shadow layer, using a dominant background colour (in this case, grey):

Then I select everything that's not shadow, and fill it with the ambient light colour. In this case, the scene is lit by a torch, so the light is very orange/yellow. Playing with this layer's opacity allows me to decide just how strong the light is a given scene, especially in terms of how much it contrasts with the shadows:

Finally, a layer of highlights. In this case I used the yellow/orange of the torch but also some white, because I felt that with torchlight on gold, there was enough yellow in the scene and I wanted to break it up a bit. As a final touch, I turned the black line around the torch's flame into a yellow colour hold. You might need to click through to the larger version to really appreciate the differences in this one:

And we're done! Woo-hoo! Just another 111 pages to go!

No Wonder It's Taking So Long...

2009-07-03T10:00:00.002-04:00

I've been going through the thumbnail layouts for Two Generals, making the changes that have come up in the last six months' research, and generally getting it polished up so that I can finally start drawing for real. I've laughed out loud a few times, though, at what I'm sometimes working with. Here's just one example:

And this is just one page out of, you know, 130. Yikes!

"Three Thieves: Tower of Treasure" Finished!

2009-06-24T10:55:00.004-04:00

The first book in my all-ages fantasy series Three Thieves was delivered to the fine folks at Kids Can Press last Friday. It's my first colour graphic novel, and I'm very happy with how it turned out (though I discovered that colouring 112 pages takes much longer than anticipated...I appreciate what colourists in the comics biz do a lot more now).

The book doesn't hit store shelves until fall 2010, but I'll be posting art here throughout the year, just so people don't forget it's on the way. In the meantime, I'll be back to work on Two Generals, and getting started on Three Thieves Book Two!

Design Edge Canada Cover

2009-06-19T10:10:00.002-04:00

Check your local newsstand for the upcoming July/August issue of Design Edge Canada, which sports an environmental-themed cover by yours truly:

More Finished Pages from "Three Thieves: Tower of Treasure"

2009-05-14T14:39:00.004-04:00

Still plugging away at colouring and lettering the book. Here's a scene I kind of like, on account of its "night" lighting:

It's Free Comic Book Day!

2009-05-02T16:43:00.002-04:00

Today is Free Comic Book Day across North America...so what are you doing here when you could be at a comic book shop near you, checking out the amazing diversity of work being done in this exciting medium and picking up free loot?

Here, at last, is the full-page strip I did for this year's Comics Festival! You should still go pick up the book, though, because it's got a lot of other great stuff in it, too. And it's FREE!

"Tower of Treasure" Nearing Completion

2009-04-28T18:13:00.003-04:00

I haven't been posting much lately, the reason being that I'm ears-deep in colouring and lettering the first book in my all-ages fantasy series for Kids Can Press. She's almost finished!

I'll be posting lots of finished art eventually, but for now here's just a taste:

Comics Festival 2009 Announced

2009-03-25T18:20:00.003-04:00

Every second year, those lovely and talented men-about-town Chris Butcher and Chip Zdarsky put together a free anthology of Canadian comics talent called Comics Festival, which serves as a tie-in to both the bi-annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival, as well as the Free Comic Book Day event across North America.

I've always been invited to participate in past editions, but have never been able to thanks to some deadline or another. The theme of this year's anthology, though, is comics for kids--so it seemed the perfect year to contribute by using the characters from next year's Three Thieves. As an added bonus, it's being printed in colour for the first time.

This is an original one-page story, not simply an excerpt from the book. So you'll want to snap up a copy or two when it goes on sale at comic shops everywhere on May 2nd (which is Free Comic Book Day, of course). If not, there will certainly be plenty of copies floating around at TCAF the following weekend. Again, it's FREE, so there's really no excuse not to, dammit.

Still not convinced? The book also contains a 10-page story by French cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert, as well as more one-pagers by Kate Beaton, Willow Dawson, Ray Fawkes, Faith Erin-Hicks, Eric Kim, Steven Charles Manale, Ryan North, Steve Rolston, Kean Soo, Tara Tallan, and more. Go get one for your kids, your neices and nephews, the paperboy, the kid down the street...and yourself.

From the Vault: The Crimson Avenger!

2009-03-17T13:50:00.003-04:00

I don't spend much time trying to hit up Marvel and DC Comics for work. Not only is the current state of superhero comics so depressing that I'd rather not be part of it, but at heart I'm an indie guy. Given the choice (which, thankfully, I do have) I'd rather be doing my own stuff.

A few years back, though, my buddy and former collaborator J. Torres began working together on a pitch for DC reviving the Golden Age character The Crimson Avenger. They didn't bite--in fact, once J. told them the concept, they immediately told us, "no revamps of classic characters, no 'cartoony' art." So that was about that. But I still like these sketches that I did of the character, both in costume and out, and came across them recently while digging through some old files. So here they are, a brief glimpse of what might have been if DC Comics wasn't so rabidly anti-cartooning.

New "Two Generals" Research

2009-02-05T16:49:00.008-05:00

Just as I was finally making some headway with Two Generals art, a new bombshell landed.

Though I have no reservations in saying that this is going to be one of the most thoroughly-researched graphic novels ever published anywhere in the world, a big gap in my knowledge was always centred around my grandfather's friend Jack Chrysler. I've never known that much about the man himself, aside from what's written in my grandfather's diary (the starting point for my research, and the genesis of the idea for the book). He's mentioned briefly in some of the books I've read on the battle of Buron, but for the purposes of telling the story I'd simply had to invent a personality for him based on those two meagre resources. Attempts to track down his family or learn anything else about him always proved fruitless.

That is, until about two weeks ago, when I got an email from the daughter of Jack's widow. By complete coincidence, her husband had come across a post I made on a British people-search message board about nine months ago asking if anyone had information about her mother, who wrote my grandmother a very nice letter in 1944, shortly after she and Jack were married in England. As it turns out, the daughter (the friendly and knowledgeable Jan Spiers...hi, Jan!) is in possession of all of her mother's photos and letters from the war years, including almost daily letters from Jack when he was fighting alongside my grandfather in France. It's an amazing discovery, both on a professional and personal level. We've recently begun the process of filling in each other's knowledge of events, which has been hugely rewarding.

Of course, this means further delay for a book that was originally supposed to have been finished in mid-December. But at least it's the good kind of delay. A much more complete picture of one of the book's central characters has emerged, and once I've had time to process all of the new information and figure out how to apply it to the book, the end result is going to be better--and more accurate--for it.

Green Lantern Commission

2009-01-14T10:56:00.007-05:00

I don't do fan commissions very often, because I rarely have the time...I always figure that if I have time to do a commission, I have time to do another page of whatever book I happen to be working on. I also rarely draw superheroes. So that makes this piece a rarity in at least two ways. But this particular fan really wanted my take on Green Lantern, and was willing to pay handsomely, so who am I to say no? I left him waiting about six months, though, because I'm that busy. Still, I'm happy with the way it turned out, so here it is, for all to see:

Whenever I do stuff in two-colour, people always say it reminds them of my buddy Mike Cho, which I take as a compliment. I just want to state for the record, though, that I was doing two-colour when Mike was in short-pants. Although he's a lot better at it than I am (shhh...don't tell him, though!)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T17:13:00.004-05:00

Welcome to 2009, everybody.

It's going to be a strange year for me. I'm going to have absolutely nothing new coming out, book-wise, but I'm going to be working like a dog producing the small mountain of material that will be released in 2010. It's going to seem to fans as if I've dropped off the face of the Earth, when in reality this is certain to be the busiest twelve months of my entire career.

Ah, well. Followers of this blog will be able to keep up to date with what I'm working on, at least, and I promise to update regularly. There's going to be lots to look at, and I may--pending publisher approval--serialize portions of the new books here before they're released, so that 2010 may come early for those of you dedicated enough to check in often.

Until then, let's kick off the new year with another sneak peak at the pencils for Three Thieves: Tower of Treasure. Just for fun.

"Home for the Holidays"

2008-12-12T16:40:00.006-05:00

Each Christmas for the last few years, The National Post has invited Canadian comics artists to contribute half- or full-page comic strips built around a holiday theme, and published them in their Christmas Eve edition. In 2005, they asked Darwyn Cooke, Kagan McLeod, and myself.

The theme was "Home for the Holidays". I decided to use it as an opportunity to address something that the media just couldn't get enough of that particular December: the so-called "war on Christmas." I was appalled by the amount of ignorance on BOTH sides of this non-issue (which, thankfully, seems to have died down some since then...what used to be a round-the-clock "war on Christmas" watch in the news media has become just the odd news snippet) and wrote this strip affirming the true value of the holiday as something that's the exclusive domain of neither Christians nor secularists.

Though the drawing is a bit rough in places (it was done in a hurry, like most newspaper work) I'm still very happy with the strip, and it hasn't been seen anywhere for three years now, so here it is, just in time for another Christmas. You can click either image in this post for the bigger version.

And, oh yeah...merry Christmas!

"Three Thieves" Pencils in the Can

2008-12-09T17:51:00.006-05:00

It's been a long four months, but 108 pages worth of pencil art for Three Thieves: Tower of Treasure just came off the scanner. Here are some highlights of the swashbuckling action, or at least ones that don't give away any major plot points. As always, you can click on the images for larger versions. Enjoy!

Christmas On Its Way

2008-12-05T11:39:00.004-05:00

For illustrators, a sure sign that the holidays are around the corner is the number of Christmas-themed assignments we end up being offered. Here's a recent one, for Leader's Edge Magazine, which allowed me to pay tribute to one of my heroes, Theodor "Dr. Suess" Geisel. It was a full-page illustration for a feature article about employee incentives (like cash!) Enjoy!

New "Northwest Passage" Reviews

2008-12-02T10:53:00.005-05:00

Sure, the book has been out for a year and a half and is headed for a second printing, but that doesn't mean it's too late for new reviews of The Annotated Northwest Passage!

First, newspaper arts & entertainment editor John E. Mitchell gives the book a thumbs-up over at The Last Visible Blog.

Second, Don MacPherson gives the book a 10/10 at Eye on Comics. He also comes as close as anyone has yet to appreciating what was meant by the book's title...so give yourself a cigar, Don!

Thanks for the positive (if somewhat delayed) notices, gentlemen!

"Visions of an Icon" Auction On Now

2008-11-26T12:33:00.007-05:00

Followers of this blog may remember this post from earlier in the year in which I talked about contributing a piece of art to the "Visions of an Icon" art show, which celebrated the 70th anniversary of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's creation of Superman.

All of the pieces from that show are now on eBay, with proceeds benefitting The Joe Shuster Awards. So head on over and help me raise some money for a fine organization that helps shine a spotlight on Canadian cartooning talent every year. You can find my piece here, though the auction also contains work by the likes of Francis Manapul, Jeff Lemire, Eric Kim, Agnes Garbowska, Ed Northcott, Dave Sim, Ty Templeton, Michael Cho, Tom Grummett, Noel Tuazon, Greg Hyland, and more.

The auction ends December 1st, so go take a look!

"Two Generals" Script Approved!

2008-10-31T14:08:00.006-04:00

After a year and a half of negotiating, research, writing, more research, switching publishers, renegotiating, rewriting, and so on, my script for Two Generals has FINALLY been approved! Now I'm working on some thumbnail layouts, and will begin pencilling as soon as Three Thieves: Tower of Treasure is in the can.

Just as a tease, here's a single page of the script:

What's going to happen next...? Nothing too bad happens on June 6th, 1944 does it (wink, wink)?

New Illustration/Design

2008-10-31T13:42:00.005-04:00

I enjoy doing occasional work for trade magazines, because it gives me an excuse to unleash the full force of my Popular-Mechanics-in-the-40s style. Case in point, this piece that I recently finished for long-time client Carpenter Magazine:

Mundo Fantasma

2008-10-14T23:54:00.002-04:00

A brief but fun interview with yours truly appeared yesterday over at the Portugese comics blog Mundo Fantasma. My answers appear in both Portugese and English, so pick your favourite and enjoy!

Design Edge Canada

2008-10-07T14:04:00.005-04:00

With my hands full with two graphic novels, not to mention the downturn in the market, I haven't exactly been spending a lot of time on commercial illustration lately. Here's a recent assignment that turned out well, though, and which will be appearing in the upcoming issue of Design Edge Canada.

And, for kicks, here are the inks, pencils, and rough for the same illustration. As you can see, not much changed the whole way along. Some times you nail it on the first try, others...not so much.

"Two Generals" Moves to McClelland & Stewart

2008-09-17T12:43:00.007-04:00

Those of you who have watched or listened to recent interviews I've given may have heard me refer to the publishing details for my upcoming book Two Generals as being "up in the air." No longer.

Despite the book's obvious educational value, its original publisher Tundra Books balked at the content of the script as being inappropriate to include in their catalogue of young adult classics. But fear not, fans of graphic military biographical non-fiction! After a few months of renegotiation, the project has been taken over by Tundra's parent company, McClelland & Stewart, who will offer it in both their adult and young adult catalogues.

McClelland & Stewart is Canada's oldest and most prestigious literary publisher. The roster of authors they've published reads like a Can-lit who's who: Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, Rohinton Mistry, Alice Monro, Jane Urquhart, Guy Vanderhaege (one of my favourites), and the memoirs of the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Now the bad news: the lost summer means the book's release is now slated for early spring 2010. I'll be working on a second draft of the script over the next few weeks, and starting to draw as soon as the first Three Thieves book is in the can. Until then, here are a couple of teaser panels from the pages I've pencilled so far.

And yes...my book has both Louis Armstrong and Hitler in it! The question is why doesn't yours?

Three Thieves Progress Report

2008-09-08T12:55:00.004-04:00

On the weekend I finished pencilling the first act of the first book in my Three Thieves series (which is titled Tower of Treasure, pending publisher approval) and thought now would be a good time to post an update, as I haven't mentioned it since the deal was signed.

Series editor Karen Li at Kids Can Press did an amazing job helping me get the script in shape, and as usual the story and dialogue are getting another polish as I draw. Obviously I can't share too much, but I've posted a three-page sequence that I really enjoy, one which hopefully gives some of the flavour of the book--physical, fast-paced, and fun.

So far, the project has been a lot of fun, it's coming out well, and it's even ahead of schedule. Here's hoping all those things continue to be true.

I hope to soon have an update on my other ongoing project, Two Generals, as well. Anyone who's listened to any of my recent interviews will have learned that things with that book have been complicated recently, but the publishing issues have worked themselves out, and as soon as the papers are signed there will be a significant announcement to make. Stay tuned!

Convention Sketch Round-Up

2008-09-05T12:35:00.004-04:00

With convention season coming to a close for another year, I thought maybe it would be time for a new tradition. Like most cartoonists, I spend most of my time at con appearances drawing for fans--quick (10-15 minute) marker drawings, usually of a favourite character or theme, for a price of $20 apiece. Some of these end of being pretty good (if I do say so myself), and as many of them end up online anyway, I figure they might as well end up online here, too.

So, here's the first of what will likely be many posts to come containing some of my favourite con sketches. Enjoy!

This one goes back a few years, and is in fact one of my very first convention sketches. But I still really like it. Oni Press editor-in-chief James Lucas Jones keeps a Royal Tenenbaums-themed sketchbook which features art from nearly all of the artists who have worked for the company over the years (which I probably don't need to tell you is an impressive lot.) I picked Gene Hackman as Royal, since he was the easiest to caricature.

This one, of Captain Jack Sparrow, is much more recent. I did it at last month's Fan Expo Canada.

And this one, of the classic Flash villain called The Trickster, was from a show earlier this year, but damned if I can remember which one.

Paso Al Noroeste!

2008-08-18T16:37:00.002-04:00

The cover of the new Spanish-language edition of Northwest Passage:

So very, very cool.