Here's the finished pencils for the Hellboy pin-up

These pencils came out pretty well, if I say so myself. Compare to the layout I posted earlier to see how important it is for an artist to have a decent roadmap to use in completing a drawing. There are times when a drawing just flows, and then there are times when you just fight the piece, maybe even starting over in frustration. In my personal experience, I do better in the pencil stage when an editor does not ask for figure changes on a sketch or layout. "Turn the head to the left," or "tilt the torso backwards just a bit" comments always mess with my head. What may be small adjustments often will throw off the whole figure to me, and if I attempt my finishes from the original sketch and just "turn the head to the left," I get into trouble! In many ways, I enjoy doing interior pages more because no layouts need to be submitted for approvals, as they do with covers.

One of my weaknesses is a desire to jump to the finish stage prematurely, such as beginning to ink before the whole drawing is down on the board. But then, I like venturing into scary territory on paper, as I like inking from a bunch of scribbles to "find" the drawing.

Hellboy is copyright and trademark 2011 by Mike Mignola