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AdamWarren — When EMPOWERED Attacks, p.2
Published: 2007-09-07 17:46:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 21545; Favourites: 139; Downloads: 1137
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Description
From the upcoming second volume of EMPOWERED, my "sexy superhero comedy" book due out from Dark Horse Comics on Oct. 3rd, here's another continuity page... Note that this is from the short story "Wahh, Wahh, Wahh", the title page for which can be seen at:[link]
This time around, a depowered Emp is once again being dissed by a bad guy... but, as you'll see in the finished book, Lone Gunman picked the wrong day to mess with our long-suffering heroine.
UPDATE: For the time being, you can see a 10-page preview from EMPOWERED vol. 2 at Publishers' Weekly: [link]
As for EMPOWERED 2, you can preorder the book from your local comics retailer or bookstore (heck, even my local Barnes & Noble briefly stocked EMPOWERED vol. 1, albeit in the jumbled hellscape of the regular comics section, as opposed to the orderly paradise of the manga section)... or you can order it from DH online at:
[link]
...or from Amazon. com at:
[link]
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Comments: 17
Emp's thoughts: Useless, huh? 
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After seeing Adam's process to make those amazing pages, i remember an old art teacher of my art school complaining to me to "NO USE MORE THAN TWO STEPS TO DRAW, KID!!!"
I was trying to make pages with at least four steps from rough to final art... after his 'advice', my art got much worse. Damn, that guy was dumb.
Next time, ask a professional artist, NOT a teatcher!
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Good to know... i heard from the man himself
Personally, i think that the tight pencils in EMPOWERED are more... appealing than your early inked works for Dirtypair... uh, then again, my copy of BIOHAZARDS is in a inferior quality paper than my copy of SIMHELL, so i can't make a fair judging on both based in paper quality or art style (i don't think that the fine inked linearts from SIMHELL would survive in the paper where BIOHAZARDS were printed 
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Well... I am, technically, only using two stages to create these pages, so your teacher wasn't necessarily far off on this point.
There really is something to be said for "getting right on the page" as quickly as possible... Too many developmental stages not only slow your production rate down (a major problem for the working professional, especially), but can also gradually suck the life and energy outta your original image as you refine and redraw it.
Case in point: Back in the (90s) day, almost everyone who saw my layouts (starting with SIM HELL, when I started doing tight layouts) preferred their verve and energy to the far more polished and refined final inks. Hence the technique I use on EMP, which is pretty much just "layouts, extra-crispy."
Er, "layouts, extra-tight," I mean.
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yeah how long does it take ya to do a page, do ya do many thumbs, character profiles an shti, please share.
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In order: I usually do a few rudimentary design sketches for any new characters making an appearance, such as "Lone Gunman" here.
Then, I sleaze up a rough version of the page, with the characters drawn in loosely and the dialogue written on the page, in an attempt to avoid the ever-present danger of "over-scripting" (that is, putting too much dialogue in each panel).
Then I rule out the panel borders on ANOTHER sheet of paper, expand them with Sharpie markers, then transfer the rough page's basic artwork onto the new page via a lightboard... Or I can just hold the new page over the old page and transfer the images that way, as I do EMPOWERED's artwork on cheapo Staple's copy paper that you can (partially) see through!
Then, after masking off the other panels with more copy paper (to avoid graphite smearing), I get to work on the first panel's final artwork with Mars Lumograph 2mm 3B pencil leads.
As for speed of production, I can do about two pages of EMPOWERED art per full workday, though that rate can be considerably altered by story content... Crowd scenes and action sequences take MUCH longer, while close-up-heavy dialogue scenes can be cranked out quite a bit faster.
So, there ya go... The EMPOWERED production process, such as it is. Wheeeee!
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Thanks for answering Adam, are there any japanese artbooks ya recomend. Plus any books on learning japanese, I am using the Japanese in Manga Land books which are good so far, any recommendation would be much appreciated.
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Two pages a day is pretty good. I remember reading something from Dave Sim saying that he averaged about one page a day. Then again, he factored the writing time into that estimate, and he used ink. Were you slower back when you used ink?
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Yep, I was much, MUCH slower back during the Days Of Ink. The additional stages required (roughs to tight layouts to even tighter finished pencils to inks) didn't help my speed much, either.
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Adam it nice to see that Emp has developed a tough side to balance out the cry baby, i am happy that ya choose to bring grow to the character and more depth to the entire universe your creating, I think it will be your crowning achievement, not that dirty pair has not meant a thing for the comic world, but this is all you no licenses or nothing. I know it is gonna inspire a whole now wave of artist that think out side of the norm in writing and art, cause few would dare go publish there bare pencils for a story , and make it look great. Keep up the good work, this is your legacy, an i will be on the ride till the end.
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Man, he made a critical mistake, ticking her off and not tying her up.
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wow it looks great, how long it take to do this page?
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