Artist insight | Storytelling
For sketching and breakdowns I use a
leadholder with an HB lead. Hold the
pencil as far away from the tip as
possible for faster, looser lines, choking
up on it only for the fine details.
A leadholder sharpener. Gotta have one.
Kneaded erasers can change shape,
don’t tear up the paper, don’t leave
behind eraser bits, and they can be
used to either completely erase or
just lighten up pencil work.
Microns are wonderful for the way they
respond to the paper. I usually use an 03
and an 005 for all my rendering and a
1 to fill in larger black areas. Some
whiteout is handy – I prefer whiteout
pens. Pentouch is fairly transparent
while DecoColor is pretty opaque. I like
having both options for corrections,
highlights, effects and so on.
TOOLS
Lewis recommends the right
art supplies for the job...
7
BREAKING BORDERS
Like anything else, breaking
borders should only be done to
enhance impact and aid the flow of
panel to panel storytelling. This page
shows a dream-like sequence written
by Peter Milligan where the character
sees his wife floating above him
moments before he dies. There are
some rules I follow when breaking
borders. First, border breaks should
follow the rules of foreground/
background/middleground. Used
correctly, this can create a sort of 3D
movie effect. I wanted the wife in
panel three to break borders, butsince she’s in the middleground I had
to have the head in the foreground at
the bottom pop out of the panel.
Second, objects breaking borders
should spill over into consecutive
panels only. Here, the guy’s helmet in
panel one leads the eye to panel two,
the wife’s hair takes us from panel
two down her legs pointing at the
soldier at the bottom of panel three,
and her left elbow leads to panel
four. If you break the border, break
a whole lot of it! If it’s half-assed, the
effect will be weak and it’ll look like
you simply ran out of room. Be bold!8
GO WITH THE Z-FLOW
Direct the reader’s eye in a Z-pattern
across the page, left to right, then down right to
left, and left to right again. This page uses quick
cut panels to enhance the Z reading pattern.