Polishing That Iron

Okey dokey, I thought it might be fun to share some roughs for that Iron Man story to get a look at what the process goes like for me when making a page. I just do thumbnail sketches of what I'd like to do what the page. Sometimes it may take a few times before I settle on a composition that I like, other times it comes quicker than that. For page 1, it took me a few times before I settled on the shot that gives you some good Iron booty.

page 1 layout

With this, I was also able to get the Mandarin in the shot giving the first words that the script called for along with the mysterious hourglass object that was behind him.

Page 1 inked on bristol board 11x17

For the finalized page, you can probably see where I made changes to the original thumbnail sketch but it overall remains pretty faithful to that concept. Some things added like some smokey mist and good jazz from Iron Man's entrance. I thought the title looked too tacky on the thumbnail so I played around to make it fit more organically.

pages 3-4 layout

Pages 3-4 was a totally zany double page spread. I'd say it was justified because there ended up being 20 Iron Men bursting out of an hourglass, which is pretty zany.

pages 3-4 inked on bristol board 22x17

Double page spreads are a strange thing to do, it's got to be something that's big and doesn't waste the valuable space that's available to tell the story. Keeping our Silver Centurion Iron Man in the foreground and firmly there helped to reel in all the other guys and give them their debut in a way that presents it as kind of surreal, in the sense that it's that Iron Man's story but here are all these other guys jumping in. playing around with the sound is a booming whistle that reverses itself on the other half of the spread since there are Iron Men from both the past and the future there.

page 5 layout

For page 5, you can see where I ended up having some changes in the composition to allow for a more dramatic image. In the script, the final panel here said to just leave it blank, but I don't wanna skimp on anything ever so I just naturally filled it with another 21 Iron Men. Fitting so many Iron Men in these panels was a good time... I'm serious, too.

page 5 inked on bristol board 11x17

One thing I enjoy doing with comic panels or the way I lay out a page is to reflect some of the things happening in the story, so there you guys get some funky iron panels because they're about to iron out Iron Man's kinks.

page 6 layout v1

My original layout for page 6 is above. It was serviceable enough but I didn't feel like it highlighted the situation in a striking enough, or in a less conventional way.

page 6 layout v2

I became more and more interested in using the Mandarin's symbol as a way to capture the moment in a way that catches the eye. The Iron Men were arranged more like a game board in this rough, but that was bothering me because it didn't feel right.

page 6 inked on bristol board 11x17

I ended up solving the Iron Man problem by arranging them in a circular shape more akin to the Iron Man arc reactor- overtaking the Mandarin symbol. Too many symbols eating symbols for symbolism, ahhhhhh! The bottom half of Mandarin's goofy grinning face is situated at the top of the page, with his proclamation being interrupted by some repulsor blast's charging up and taking the eyes into the big circle of Iron Men. Oh boy. Then we get to see the Mandarin's eyes in reaction to this sight, he knows he's about to get thoroughly smashed. Not in a good way, nope.

Tony

Getting to draw 80s Tony Stark with his luscious locks and that fantastic mustache was also a big delicious treat. The manly-ness of 80s Tony Stark is too much to handle. Hope you enjoyed that peek into crafting this piece o work, guys. I will be sitting here just doing the dew of drawing at my drawing board in the meantime.