Inking another PAGE from LOLA: A Ghost Story

This is one of my favorite pages from the book because it was such a delight to work on.

Most inkers are thought of as tracers by people not intimately familiar with how a comic book is produced. As a result, we’re frequently thought of as less than the pencillers because all we do is supposedly follow the lines that they’ve already laid down, which is not always the case.

While admittedly there are pencillers who draw in a very tight and clean style leaving little interpretation by the inker, the comic book drawing process is more often than not a collaborative one where both penciller and inker draw upon each other’s strengths in order to produce artwork that tells a story.

The sequence is as follows: 1) Pencils by Elbert Or, 2) inks by Jonas Diego, and 3) cleanup and compositing by Neil Amiel Cervantes.

The Pencils

I knew, even from seeing it for the first time, that the page had a lot of potential.

I had Elbert draw a few more people because there was a gaping empty space at the bottom left hand of the page. I just composited the added pencilled people, printed the whole thing in nice stock paper in no-repro red, and pencilled in a few more stuff that I felt that the page needed.

They’re the following:

1) The floating leaves (or pieces of paper, depending on the environment) are something I almost always add (at least whenever I can get away with it) in anything I am drawing, pretty much like how John Woo finds some way to incorporate doves into any movie he makes.

2) I use it to help bring focus to an object, depict motion, or simply create a melancholic mood.

3) I added the trees in the graveyard beside the church to add to the overall sinister atmosphere. The trees in the corner are pretty much there as a framing device.

4) I fixed the perspective though and added a few tiny details and texture here and there.

I held off adding too much so as not to overwhelm the page.

The Inks

This is one of my favorite pages and had a lot of fun drawing it. I used a Sakura Brush (no. 2 and no. 5) for most of the linework you see. I reverted to using technical pens (UNI Pin 0.2, 0.4, and 0.5) when drawing the panel borders and the tiny details like brickwork.

The Cleanup

At this point, satisfied that I hadn’t forgotten anything, I turn the page over to Neil Amiel Cervantes.

Neil cleaned up the red pencils and the smudges and dirt that a page accumulates during the process of drawing through the digital magic of Photoshop. He cloned some recurring elements like that thing with the bell on the church tower and the window as well as filling the shadows I left blank with black.

Hope you enjoyed this little feature.

LOLA: A Ghost Story is out in bookstores now so go and buy a copy (tell them I sent you)!

LOLA: A Ghost Story

Story by J. Torres
Pencils by Elbert Or
Inks by Jonas Diego
Grayscale by Robo Monkey Pixel Fighters’ (RMPF) Neil Amiel Cervantes and Katrina Mae Hao