PART 1: DESIGN AND INK A COMIC PANEL

Marvel artist Steve Ellis explains his process for illustrating an action-packed post-apocalyptic comic battle sequence

- Steve Ellis

This is the first of a two-part series on creating a page for a new project. This page is for an upcoming comic with writers Shannon Eric Denton and Kevin Grevioux called Ironkiller, set in a post-apocalyptic hell world occupied by demons and recreated through evil magic.

Here we'll cover how I design and make decisions on the characters and world, and how to tell a story that both moves the action along and establishes the setting. This is especially important in a new project, as we need to quickly give the reader an understanding of the environment and the stakes riding on the story.

We'll also go over my process for working a page from rough layout to finished ink, and some of the tricks I use. I'll also talk about how to handle matters when the page goes awry or changes are needed.

I tend to start my work in my sketchbook, then move the sketches to the computer, print them out, work in pencil, and so on. It's a backand-forth process. With each iteration I'm adding, rethinking and refining until I get to the final ink. Sometimes, as in this case, I even have last-minute changes, but it's all part of making an exciting page!

1 Design the characters 

I want our main character, Gale, to feel like a tough-as-nails creation out of the Mad Max world, with a little Dungeons and Dragons hero mixed in. I went back and forth with writers Shannon Eric Denton and Kevin Grevioux before we ended up with a fun, gritty character. 

2 Create the world 

The world is supposed to be our own after a magical calamity where demons walk the Earth, so I wanted there to be recognisable, modern landmarks mixed with a crazy hellscape. I used New York as the basis for the buildings and then added some gravity-defying demonic elements too. I used Photoshop here to collage a vision board of what I wanted the world to look like.