Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everyone! I hope your turkey and pie will be as delicious as mine was last night. Sadly I’m caught at the day job on this festive holiday but that won’t stop me from delivering the second stage of making the cover to Mission 003!

This was the first time that I didn’t ink over my original pencils but instead scanned my pencils onto my computer and printed out a “blue line” version of it. A blue line version is just what it sounds like: a version of your pencils where the grey pencil lines are changed to blue. This is done so that you can ink without worrying about making a mistake and ruining your pencils. If I make a mistake I can simply print another blue line copy and try again. Normally I would just ink over my original pencils but there were so many little details in this cover and I didn’t want to risk loosing those if the inks didn’t turn out properly.

Most people think that inking is just tracing when really it is what brings the drawing to life. Adding depth to the lines, bringing the right details to the forefront and keeping the action in focus is done through the inks and it can be just as satisfying inking a page as drawing one.

Have a fantastic Canadian Thanksgiving and don’t miss the final cover reveal on Thursday!

-Andrew