Art Question for Steve

[King-Conan]

Hey Steve I'm a big fan of your work. There was never an interview with you in a Crossgen trade about your art process like there was with some of the other pencilers there so I thought maybe you could tell us about it here. I remember reading somewhere that you start off with a 50% layout and then move on to another layout before the final page. Is the second layout printed comic size or all the way up to full page size? Do you ever lightbox your second layout on the back side of the initial one like Scot Eaton or do fully inked layouts like Steve Epting? Also I've noticed that you use some extreme perspective shots sometimes, do you draw your perspective grid on one of the smaller layouts or just do it on the final piece? Shed some light on how you make those beautiful pages of yours :cool:

[Professor Oreo]

I'm interested in your process as well Steve. Please pull back the curtain and let us take a peek will ya? ;)

[steve mcniven]

Hey guys, glad to pull back the curtain for you but really there's not a lot of magic there, just practice. It's very much like playing an instrument, you have to practice over and over for years. A method or five will come from that, and you can always quicken the process by adding in the pressures of deadlines!
Here's what I usually go through in a page. I start with a few thumbnails to get the storytelling down, a step that is somewhat streamlined by using the widescreen panel constraint. Less mucking about with panel arrangements. Of course that time is eaten by extensive compositional problems inherent in the constraint. See, sometimes a panel description, say a guy falls off a building, would be easily served with a long vertical panel, or a talking head shot becomes much more problematic when you have all that extra space on the sides. Stuff like that. Nevertheless, when the storytelling is done I blow it up to comic size and tighten up the rough. Then I blow that up to board size and lightbox it. Oh yeah, I forgot, my layout have no blacks or textures, nor fiddly details. I add those on the final board drawing( usually). I use the layout to concentrate on structure. Check out some of Gil Kane's layouts, they are astounding!
Well, there it is, although I do try to experiment as much as possible. From what I've seen, there is no right way, no rules you absolutely have to follow. Just have fun and it'll show through.
Really the most important thing to me is the storytelling. As far as I can tell drawing styles go in and out of fashion, sometimes faster than they can be mastered, but good storytelling never goes out of style.

[Professor Oreo]

Thanks for the reply steve! It's always cool to hear how a great artist makes his work. Very helpful, thank you so much!

[Butch Mapa]

Cool :)

How long does it take you to finish a page Steve? Does blowing the page up twice slow you down?

[King-Conan]

As far as I can tell drawing styles go in and out of fashion, sometimes faster than they can be mastered, but good storytelling never goes out of style. Good advice there. Thanks for taking the time to discuss your process with us Steve. :)

[steve mcniven]

my pleasure professor, anytime.
Yeah Butch, it is a longer process that's for sure and eventually I'll change it up, but so far it's the best way to get the results I want. As to how long I'm sure you have heard this before but it does depend on the page, but on average I'd say each page takes around 8 to 12 hours. I know a lot of extremely talented guys that can get the same results in half the time, but I'm a newbie at this stuff, only been at the superhero gig for less than three years. Still cutting my teeth so to speak.
No problem sharing with you King Conan, it's been fun. Now back to Civil War.

[Chris Noeth]

As far as I can tell drawing styles go in and out of fashion, sometimes faster than they can be mastered, but good storytelling never goes out of style.

That is SO true!

Keep up the great work Steve!

Best,

Chris