Monday, April 2, 2012

Cleopatra In Spaaaace!


Cleopatra In Space © Mike Maihack

Mike Maihack has been posting guest strips of his wonderful web comic Cleopatra In Space. I had been totally digging all the different takes on these great characters. On Twitter I asked him if he was writing them and others drawing, or were the guest creators doing all of it themselves. Well, a few tweets later (also involving Spazzy) Mike extended a warm invitation to me to do my take on his strip. I did give him a chance to back out, but he wanted to see what I would do. Today he posted my finished strip. I had so much fun doing this, I really want to do my own even more. Thanks for the opportunity Mike, you have a big heart allowing me to play in your sandbox with your toys.

Before you look at the process steps below, you really should read the full strip here. I'll wait.

"Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes 
Goes "A-a-a-h""

Wasn't that fun? Okay, on to the process. I did things a little different with this. I did a full script that I submitted to Mike. He said it wasn't necessary, but I felt better doing the work with his approval. Then I did a really rough layout as a guide. From there I set all the word balloons and borders in Illustrator and printed the page in black on a sheet of 11" x 17" Strathmore Bristol Board. I tightened up the roughs on copy paper, one panel at a time. Then light boxed my pencils on the board with the lettering. Inks were next and then I scanned the finished black and white pages back into Photoshop for coloring. 



The final original art has all the lettering in place and finished inked art. I think it just looks cooler when the letters and art are on the same page. Don't you? :)

And yeah, I really went with those titles. I've been around Royce too long. ;)

This is Post #1656

7 comments:

Unknown said...

YES!!!! heheheeh

Gene Gonzales said...

Thanks Spazzy! :)

Royce Thrower said...

Haha... THAT was fun!!! Just saw that your CCS list is full. THAT WAS FAST!!! Can't say that I am surprised though, This is one of the BEST deals going for commissions! Just shows what happens when I go out of town for two days and don't check in on Gene's blog! I won't make THAT mistake again! :)

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Loot will keep us together? Hilarious title! Also see the pirate from your sketchbook post a few weeks back! Well done!

Gary

Gene Gonzales said...

Thanks Royce! I thought you might like the Captain and Tennille vibe to the titles. :)

Thanks Gary! Yup, that's the pirate guy. :)

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Loot will keep us together? Hilarious title! Also see the pirate from your sketchbook post a few weeks back! Well done!

Gary

Little John said...

Love this! Nice job Gene!