Close the ink gates - Part IV

Hot damn IT'S OVER!

Hello from Castrum Lusitania, my fortress in northern Portugal. Welcome to another edition of our weekly newsletter.

It has been a rather intense couple of months ever since I got back from Barcelona, but now the ending is in clear sight. Next week, Phenomena Book 2 will be put to rest and a brand new thing (well, kinda - it’s Phenomena Book 3) will be the center of my attention.

You can read the entire odyssey of completing the last 44 pages of Phenomena Book 2 in the previous entries:

About penciling, you have Lead Poisoning.

And about inking, you have the 3 previous chapters of Open The Ink Gates: Part I, Part II and Part III. I took the liberty to change the title of Part IV since we’re about to wrap it up.

“Why Did You Skip Last Week?”

Don’t shout, I can hear you just fine. And you’re getting this for free, so let’s be civil.

I left a quick note here saying I’d be skipping last week due to a work emergency. I prefer skipping every once in a while when needed be than writing some hastily thing just for the sake of doing so. The “emergency” were two massive covers I was going to do next week, but scheduling conflicts meant I had to pass both covers to my usual colorist Chris O’Halloran sooner than expected.

One cover is for Phenomena Book 2. The other is for a special edition of A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance. Both are dust jacket covers, which is even larger than a double spread, so a lot of time had to be allocated. The two images will be revealed sooner rather than later, but I can leave you with a few sneak peeks. After all, this is what this newsletter is all about.

The Phenomena cover is one of the most insanely dense drawings I ever did. And that’s saying something:

The Righteous Thirst cover was a bit easier, fortunately. But still, there isn’t any lack of details:

More on each one of these on the next few weeks.

Phenomena Inks

Now about the inking madness I was involved, not much to add other than it’s almost done. Most of the work next week will be dedicated to grey tones already since only a few pages are lacking details. With the final scene taking place at night, all the distant backgrounds are in black (I’ll be adding lights/windows with a white pen). I’m unsure if it’s much faster than drawing the city in day light, since perspective is still heavily used for the silhouettes and then I have to carefully fill everything with black ink while keeping all the details and figures intact. I’ll tell you what, it ain’t fast.

Here below you can see a few images of the current state of the remaining pages I have yet to complete. With all the complex stuff done, a day should be enough to complete most if not all of the pages.

Phenomena 2 Proofs

Recently a delivery came with a lovely package from China: it was the proofs for Phenomena Book 2. We have enough finalized to keep advancing in the various moments of the process, so when I wrap it up on my side the ball is already rolling on other places (cover, lettering, design - all of it is already in motion).

And truth is, we couldn’t be happier with the proofs, they came out absolutely perfect. The first printing tests for Book 1 were a disaster because of the moiré effect from the tones I was using and it took us a few rounds to nail the problem. Fortunately, we applied the lessons to the second volume and we got it right on the first try.

See here some details. This book is gonna look glorious:

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A final note: I was supposed to be on a Live Draw with the fine folks from

3W/3M

this last Friday but they had to cancel it. The good news is that it is going to happen in a future date so we can all look forward to that.

See you all next week!

André