For some reason I really wanted to steer clear from using speed lines. You know, those little action/motion lines to illustrate movement. I think I thought they might have been too cartoony. That seems insane considering that my style is anything but realistic.

I tried them a few times early on but never liked them. After awhile, I was starting to think my action scenes were a little flat and lifeless, particularly when I started drawing the first couple fight scenes in “The Key”. I studied some Carlos Ezquerra Judge Dredd work (because Carlos is a master of sci-fi action comics) and realized, yup, I needed to add those speed lines. 

The first drawing here is my first recent attempt, and it’s pretty bad.  The lines aren’t very curved, they’re varying thicknesses, and the placement on them is pretty terrible. 

The second drawing here I feel like I got the hang of them much better. Much more curved, a better sense of the direction of the action (the positions on the figures help that out as well) and they even kind of blur through the action, which I further accented in the colouring later. Overall much more dynamic action.

As per usual with me, I tend to learn better by trying something, failing at it, and then examining my mistakes. 

This drawing stuff is hard I tell you…

-Love Nick 

Todd McFarlane has some of the greatest advice I’ve ever heard for comic artists. Something like: you have to accept that not every panel is going to be perfect, and you have to just keep going.

The Travelling Wilburys were named after George Harrison joking that when they screwed up, not to worry about it because “We’ll bury ’em in the mix.” That’s my other mantra. Probably my main mantra actually. 

I draw on actual pages, and when I would screw up, I would obsess about getting it right on the page so I’d bust out the white paint and try to fix it. Well that is tedious and time consuming. Eventually I thought to hell with that, and said I’ll bury it in post.

The Key part 5 is probably the best example of that. I was behind schedule and was rushing, and I ended up with was probably four of the worst faces I’d ever drawn. But no worries; I just added more black lines and deleted the ones I didn’t need later Photoshop.

Here they are. Face 1 got a hair cut and lost those bags under her eyes. Face 2 got a nose job and lip repositioning. Face 3 was way too angry, got a nose job, and even a bit of hair cut. And Face 4. My god. The poor girl looked like Johnny Cash.

-Love Nick