Phase 1: Rough Sketch

I'll start by scribbling out some very rough sketches of how I might stage the scene to illustrate a specific story point. In this case, the story point is that Sir Rascus is tickling Sir Santis while he's trying to carry a giant sack of toys.

The purpose of these sketches are to work out the general composition of the scene, and how to best communicate the action. When I've got some compositions that I think will work, I send them to Denmark to review and finalize a direction to move forward.

Once the sketch is approved, it's time to add all the details and clean up the linework. I tighten everything up gradually, sometimes refining the lines over the course of several layers of tracings if a subject is especially tricky.

I'll sometimes send an intermediate image like this one back to Denmark as well if I need clarification on some of the smaller details.

If I can, I'll try and re-use backgrounds and other elements as much as possible, in order to keep the art-production budget down. This shot of the arena from 2004 is one that gets reused a lot. In this case it's pretty close to what we need; I can cover those grassy cliffs with snow a little later in the process.

The important thing is that I get the background in place before I finalize the foreground lines, so I can avoid any weird-looking overlaps or tangencies.

When it comes time to draw the final lines and details, I put every major object group on a separate layer in Photoshop and draw them completely, even if they overlap with other objects in the scene.

By putting everything on separate layers, it's a lot easier to move them around independently if it's necessary for a revision later, and it also means that other LEGO departments (for instance, the magazines) can pull individual objects out of a scene to re-use elsewhere.

Phase 2: Final Line

I set all the detail-line layers to 50% opacity and all the heavy-outline layers to 70%, and mask out any overlapping sections. This is the "Final Line" phase, and at this point I send the drawing back to Denmark again so they can check all the line details and send back a list of revisions.

Now, thanks to the heavy-outline layers I made earlier, I can quickly select the large color areas I outlined and fill them with the flat color of their color group. Now, by clicking on any of these colors with the wand tool, I can create an instant mask for all objects in that color group, which will make the final color painting much, much faster.

If I have a whole bunch of pictures to do and plenty of time, I'll keep the entire batch at the same level - bringing all the pictures to Phase 1 before I start any of them on Phase 2, for instance. If the schedule is very short, on the other hand, I'll bring one or two pictures up to this level of coloring as fast as possible and hand them to one of my colorists to take it to Final Color, while I start on bringing the next set of pictures up to this level. Whenever I have backup artists helping me out, ninety percent of the time I have them all working here on this one most time-consuming step while I'm doing all the others.

Phase 3: Final Color

I go through the color groups one at a time, for instance painting up all of Santis's blue armor at once, then all of his red armor, etc. When all of the single-color areas are done, that's when I'll go back in and do the more complex stuff like faces.

At this point all the details and colors are in place, so I send it back to Denmark one more time for a final list of revisions. We try to get as many revisions out of the way as possible during the earlier phases, because it's much faster to correct a detail on a line drawing or sketch than on a fully-colored painting. Unfortunately, there are a lot of details you just can't see until the painting is fully colored, so this is often the phase with the biggest revisions list.

Phase 4: Final Effects

Once final colors are approved, I go through and add reflections and atmospherics. Besides helping to establish mood and making everything look shiny and more attractive, these help separate visual layers and knock back less-important details so that the viewer notices the most important parts of the scene right away. When final effects are done, I send the image back to Denmark one more time, and unless they see some last-minute revision they missed in final color, it's ready to print.

Back to Knights' Kingdom images