Commission Overview: Doctor Strange and Shuma-Gorath

Deep dive and step by step

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

After a week off, we’re back with a promised deep dive into my latest commission: Doctor Strange and Shuma-Gorath. I’ve shown many bits through the last few weeks but now it’s time to show the whole piece and a proper scan of all the steps. Without further ado, let’s go ahead and take a look of a photo of the finished thing:

Now before going any further…

What’s happening with work?

A lot. I’m doing things differently with Phenomena this time around. Not only by penciling digital but also by tackling different stages of the work at the same time. After beginning in a more linear fashion, by reading the script, working on thumbnails and then pencils, I’m now inking some pages, while doing grey tones on others and already tackling the next bit of script.

So Phenomena Book 3 already has 54 scripted pages, 46 penciled pages, 31 inked pages, 17 finished pages. There is no pressing reason for me to do it like this, it was more about convenience and avoiding being stuck doing the same thing for a very long time. On Book 2 I felt I spent too long drawing the last 40 pages, this method allows for things to feel a bit more varied.

This week I’ve also begun a new cover for a great book by a great friend. The thumbnail was enthusiastically received, which fills me with excitement to tackle the final drawing.

The Commission

Right, now the meaty part. The commission.

It started as they usually do, with the client getting in touch. After accepting his request, he explained me he wanted a drawing with Doctor Strange, something I found quite appealing as I had never drawn him (one of the few that eluded me while working at Marvel).

After some research I found the pull of Shuma-Gorath irresistible and an image popped in my head. In many occasions I send more than one proposal, but if I feel strongly about an image, I send just one.

I quickly drew a sketch and sent it to the client, highlighting that Doctor Strange had its back to us - something some people wouldn’t want.

I always include the screen tones I’m planing to use in the initial sketch. It’s as much for the client as it is for me to see what it will look like and plan what tone goes where.

Thankfully, our sensibilities were aligned and the client loved it. His only request was to draw an old costume for Doctor Strange, which you can see below:

With everything approved and agreed upon, I begun the process. I send pictures of the work in progress whenever I’m working on it, including a general one in the end of each stage. For the purpose of this newsletter, I’ll be showing scans of every step (I include a digital package with the commission which has all the hi-res and lo-res scans of each step).

My main concern on a commission is to stay as close as possible to the original thumbnail. That’s the thing the client saw and approved and that will guide his expectations. So I try to change as little as possible. Therefore, pencils is all about nailing the proportions and composition of the original idea and translate them to a bigger size.

As you can see, I divided the piece of paper in thirds and halves to help me capturing the original composition. As usual, penciling for me is all about the geometry and three dimensionality of the objects and never about details or rendering. All of that is done with ink. Speaking of which:

This is the inked piece minus the stars in the background. I added a thin white line around the Shuma-Gorath to make it pop a bit more. It kind of merges with Doctor Strange here, but I knew the tones would be the thing separating the planes and adding the final bit of depth.

And here you can see the final piece. The darker tones make the Doctor pop and the star field in the background gives it all tons of depth. Plus a lighter tone on the tentacles further away from us helps give an extra dimension to Shuma-Gorath and clarify his own design.

As a curiosity, this below is a picture of the package sent in the end, which precedes the worst part of doing commissions: awaiting for it to reach the client’s house.

Thankfully, I already got an email saying it arrived safely and a lovely photo with the drawing in its new home.

An happy ending to a very satisfying thing to do. The subject was great, the client is an amazing person and the whole process was a joy because of it.

I have one more commission on my list right now, which I hope to do in the next couple of months. Meanwhile, more comic pages, more covers, more newsletters.

See you all soon!

André