Comment on faile35's profile

Thank you! I'm glad you are enjoying it. Let's see, for "special methods or tricks, or... workflow" I could perhaps share the "drawing board" method I use to get up to 85 pages (each a 9"x12" paper) taped out at one time. I have 36 drawing boards that are made of 1/8-inch masonite (press board), each measuring about 16"x 24" so I can fit two papers on them, side-by-side with some elbow room around the margins. I have about four larger-sized drawing boards that can fit three pages or one larger page like for the drawings of murals and such. This allows me to "assembly-line" a long sequence through the traditional stages of drawing that I use (reference, ink, soft pencil, smudging, final pencil, remove and scan). Doing this allows me to "sketch" out a longer sequence that I want to see/explore all at once in order to plan chapter sizes and such. I can then set all these boards out on the floor, leaning them against the wall around the outside of the room, and stand in the middle of the room and survey them, or then re-order them in a single stack that takes very little space while I crank them out, one-by-one.

However, without a doubt, the biggest "trick" I use is just a LOT of time. On her own, collared-by-faile makes enough money for us to live on, and my work is quite flexible and generous in how much time it affords me to spend doing my art. It wasn't always like this--it took us about a decade of adjustments to get it set up this way. Beyond the work and money freedom, I'm not really engaged in many other pursuits that compete with the art for my time and effort, so I spend 3-10 hours per day drawing. At this point, I estimate Demon's Due has taken 15,000-20,000 hours to produce, and it will likely get 10,000-15,000 more before I'm done. That's a lot of basketball/soccer games I didn't play, attend, or whatnot. It's also a lot of books I didn't read, and computer games I didn't play, if you get my drift. Though I have found that I'm able to enjoy some movies playing in the background, or even some TV series that I can listen to without paying too close attention, I really enjoy just hammering away at these images.

So, in the way of "tricks," one learns what details matter and what details don't. There are many places where I don't normally put a lot of time and effort to place the details that someone else might think are necessary. And while that is a matter of taste, if I weren't drawing like the hounds of hell were at my heels (my vision is deteriorating and making it more difficult to draw), I'd spend more time designing and detailing the clothing textures and architecture than I do. As it is, I see all of that as supporting the most important elements of the images for me, which is almost always the facial expressions of the characters. That's where I spend time to make it right.

Beyond that, spending time doing the same thing over and over again makes use of muscle memory, so that, in a way, my hand draws the picture without me thinking too much about it and having to spend time making lots of decisions.

For more insight into the process touched on above, you could check out collared-by-faile 's photo series, "Watching Jeff Draw," which starts here: Watching Jeff Draw Stage 1: Initial Pencil

Okay, I hope that offers you enough answer to satisfy your curiosity, and I appreciate the chance to throw my mind at it to put this together. So thanks again for the interest!