LEMMY talk about REFERENCE!
A life of MOTORHEAD, MAYHEM and MORGUE FILES!
In 1989 I saw my first heavy metal concert just outside of Pittsburgh. It was MOTORHEAD, OVERKILL and SLAYER. A fantastic show in an intimate setting that was absolutely bananas!
33 years later I was asked to illustrate a short story in an upcoming music anthology called NO REMORSE. A book about the stories of Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister that had been experienced by close friends and acquaintances that had birthed the stuff of legend. Each artist was paired with a different “writer” or teller of said story. I was paired with director, Penelope Spheeris (Decline of Western Civilization series, Wayne’s World, etc.) who shared the story with my editor.
The first thing I needed to do was break down the story into a digestible comic book format that made sense in how I would lay it out. The second thing was to gather as much reference as I could that related to the people, places, and time period the story took place in.
Even though I have a morgue file that I rely on, there are limits to the amount of storage one has when it comes to photos. That’s why the internet has been such a boon to artists. Apps like Pinterest, too, have made it convenient to store everything in the cloud and view it from whatever device is necessary.
I keep my boards secret as I DON’T NEED interaction with people or any public facing annoyances. Whatever project I have either gets a Pinterest board (depending on the depth and duration of the project) or I cobble together a reference sheet…or both.
For the NO REMORSE project I created just four. Even though it was a four page story that’s about all I really needed to do the job.
As you can see, I really pack a lot in so I can seek out the subtleties all at once. It helps keep me from flipping through lots of reference and wasting time. Now granted, searching and cutting all this out did take some time. But luckily, I had enough lead time and plenty of photos to choose from.
You can see here in the rough stages how much of the above was applied.
As you can see, since I was lettering it as well, I made sure in the rough stages all the lettering and art were working in conjunction with each other. From here I printed out the roughs to full 11” x 17” comic page size so I could ink it with a crowquill.
If you’d like to see the final art, you can check it out here on my website.
Let me know what your favorite approach is for collating reference in the comments below. I’m always looking to better streamline my process. Admittedly when I work traditionally, I use my iPad to swipe through reference, but it’s not so easy when I’m painting and have paint on my hands.
In that instance I print stuff out and put it up on a corkboard or in a sleeve three-ring binder.
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