While deciding on fluff--uh, I mean content for the ATLAND site, I thought I'd put together a short article on the steps that go into making ATLAND an exciting, essential part of your week. I mean, every other comic strip has a "how it's done" piece-why can't mine? So for anyone who's interested (all two of you) here's a little slice of magic from my studio.

   PART 1: THE WORDS

   Every ATLAND starts with a script…well…most of them do. Some I just draw without one, but if the Union finds out I jump a step, they'll break my shins. So let's just say I always start with a script.

   After the idea pops in my head, I launch a shiny new Microsoft Word document and get typing! I use a basic comic script format that looks like this:

ATLAND - Ep. 60

PANEL 1 - Close up on Bruce, manic.

   BRUCE - Mucus Maggot?!

   BRUCE - Tad, Sheila...RUN!

PANEL 2 - Big reveal of the Mucus Maggot. Pissface is riding on its back while it towers over Bruce.

   PISSFACE - --HA HA HAA!

PANEL 3 - Close up on Pissface.

   PISSFACE - HYA! HYA! GIDDYUP, MAGGOT!

PANEL 4 - Close up of Tad as he reacts to the maggot descending over his father.

   TAD - DAD! NOOO!

PANEL 5 - View from inside the maggot's mouth looking down on Bruce. Its teeth are in silhouette. Bruce drops Pissface's broken horn as he looks up in fear.

   BRUCE - Ooh...this is gonna suck.

PANEL 6 - Big vertical SFX.

   SFX - SLORCH!

   I print that out and tape it to my drafting board. I usually scratch out lines and make notes to improve things right on the print-out.

   PART 2: THE PENCILS

   Once I'm happy, I take a piece of 14"x17" Strathmore or Utrecht Bristol Board (smooth tooth) and mark off an 11"x17" area with a pencil and T-square. In the three inches of dead space left over, I make a thumbnail sketch of my panel layout. A thumbnail sketch is a small, roughly-drawn concept of the strip. Like this:

   I know, you can't tell what the hell that is. But I can. That's what counts.

   Now the fun starts. With a tech pencil (medium-hard lead) and a white drafting eraser, I pencil my page. In case there's one person out there who's never seen drafting tools...

Pencilling can take anywhere from two to four hours depending on what the script calls for. I keep a folder of character references, as well as a photo library of weapons, armor, architecture, etc. I also use Stikfa figures that I pose if I need to draw a character at a weird angle and a mirror so I can make funny faces and draw them. I'm making one right now. In the end we have a penciled page:

   PART 3: THE INKS

   At this point, I have a sandwich, go for a walk, cut my toenails, cut someone else's toenails…whatever. Then it's Inking Time!

   BEFORE 2006 I INKED THUSLY:
   First I line all my panel borders with a COPIC Sketch Marker (wedge tip) and a T-square. Then I use a Copic Multiliner SP (SM brush tip) to ink all the close-ups and a Uniball Vision Elite (Bold) to ink the small details or distant scenery. I fill in large areas of black with a regular COPIC marker (wedge tip). The COPIC Multiliner (and the brush tip ends of the Regular and Sketch COPICs) give me the nice thin/thick/thin style strokes of a brush without all the extra "dipping in an ink bottle" or "cleaning the brush after" stuff. Is it the same as a brush? No. But pretty damn close and I'm lazy and my hands shake a little so when I ink with a real brush it comes out looking like I drank a pint of espresso. The COPICs give me a little more resistance and stability with a longer nib-life than a brush, they keep their points nicely, and the Multiliner is refillable.

   IN 2006 AND AFTER, I INKED THUSLY:
   I got rid of the Uniball pen comletely and switched to Rotring Artpens (Lettering, Medium and Bold sizes) for the vast majority of my inking. I also use the Bold one to line panel borders. They're refillable and I bought a converter kit so I could use my preferrred brand of ink in them (Generally, Speedball SuperBlack). I got rid of the regular Copic Marker because I found I could use the Copic Sketch marker for everything, instead. The Copic Multiliner SP BS I now use for closeups and "hero shots". And I use A White-Out pen for those nasty boo-boos. It lets yo apply white out in fine lines. You can even draw with it over black. Handy.

Now before this turns into a commercial for pens, the inks look like this:

   PART 4: DIGITAL COLORING

   After trimming off the excess 3" of paper with an Xacto, I walk over to one of my computers (usually my Dell Dimension 8300) and scan the page in two parts with my Epson Stylus CX6600 Printer/scanner/copier. I scan the art as 400dpi, Black & White TIFFs and book-match the two halves in Photoshop. I convert to RGB mode and start to digitally color! I use layers that look like this:

   From bottom to top:

   My original inked background layer. I duplicate this layer and put it higher in the mix. Then I erase this bottom layer. The duplicate ends up being the inks you see in the finished product. This allows me to color in one document as opposed to opening a new one and dropping my inks in there. It's just laziness.

   Next up are the layers that the coloring takes place in. Sometimes just one, sometimes many. Depends on the strip, but I like to keep it as few as possible. Professional colorists use many, but since coloring is my least favorite step, I just try to get it over with as quickly as possible. I ALWAYS color from background to foreground, flat colors to cuts/shadows, and I use a Wacom tablet as well as my mouse.

   Above the colors is the duplicated Inks layer. I set this to Multiply so that the colors underneath show through.

   At the top is my Highlights layer. This layer is for things that I want to appear OVER the inks. Like the worm's spit and the outline around his back spots.

   This step can take anywhere from two to six hours depending on the page.

   Here's a progressive look at the coloring of a panel...

   At the end of the coloring process I add an additional .75" to the top of the image and put in the top bar, the logo (an EPS file I just drop in and change colors) and the credits (the credits font is called PRAETORIUM BLACK BB - Sorry kids, I custom made it, but you can download something close to that called PRAETORIUM BB from Blambot.com) Also note that I decided to add some drool in the last panel so I just drew that right in Photoshop.) Now we have this:

   PART 5: LETTERING

   Next it's time to letter the strip. I make a low-res version of the colored art, and drop that puppy into a special template I set up in Adobe Illustrator that has Layers just like I used in Photoshop to color. The art goes on a bottom layer, dimmed to 25% (So the colors are muted and I can see the lettering with absolute clarity). Above the art layer is a layer for balloons, and above that is a layer for the text and sound effects. Normally I use a more complex template when I letter professionally, but this is just for my use so I keep it simple. Lettering a page of ATLAND usually only takes 15 minutes or so.

   In the graphic below, you can see which dialogue or title font was used in each episode. All the fonts are available either for free or for sale through my lettering site, Blambot.com!

   The balloons are Manga-inspired in shape and I use the freehand pen tool to click and drag the angles around the text. Then I add the tail and Unite it to the balloon.

   Once the lettering is done, I delete the art layer from AI, I convert all the text to Outlines, and Copy it to my clipboard.

   Then we go back to Photoshop, open up our high res version, and Paste the EPS lettering on top of the art. I tweak the Levels to darken things up and we have a mostly finished strip.

   Finally we need to make it web-viewable. So we flatten all the layers and shrink it down to 600 x 415 pixels in size and save as a JPG for the web.

   I print out a 9" wide version for my 3-ring binder of episodes, Save my Photoshop and AI files, and it's time to start writing another strip.

   And that's it! Go read some ATLAND!