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Like this...

Warm it up, Chris....

Just a little warm up doodle....

Blue Pencil Push-ups

Tonight I was sketching out an establishing shot. These old movie theaters have a lot of squiggles on them. 

Another day in the sausage factory

Here's another exterior scene taking shape. 

In the first image I've made all the progress I'm going to make in pencil and I've jumped into inking. 

I based this shot on Tartine Bakery here in San Francisco. I could have gone over there and taken my own reference photos, but Google has done a great job already. Street view is a pretty good tool for this. Helpful and creepy in the way most Google aps are these days (Hi, NSA!). 

And here's the "final" version (final for now):

The tv screen will have a news ticker and lots of text. That will happen in Photoshop. This is also a night scene so it'll look very different with shading (good old Photoshop). I'll also fix the more egregious scale issues.  That guy in the doorway--either he's giant or that's a hobbit café. 

Ok, back to it...

How the sausage gets made

Dear internet,

Here's a little process update. Sometimes it's fun to see how the sausage gets made. 

Starting the inking process:

Real artists do a clean penciling pass before diving into inking. I, however, just jump in there. It takes a long time to refine details in ink, and you make lots of mistakes. I would recommend doing it the right way. But somehow this is what I end up doing. 

Here's a more refined path. You'll notice some dumb mistakes (metal grid pattern) that I'll fix in Photoshop. 

And here's the "final" version. I'll probably come back and noodle on it later. 

And there you have it.