Madman: A step-by-step look

I've recently had a few people ask me about my process, so I thought it might be time to have a proper post regarding how I work. For this example, I decided to draw Mike Allred's Madman because I love his costume and felt like drawing a leather jacket.
Conveniently, THE MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER has just been released and it looks like a beautiful book, seek out a copy if you haven't yet!


Due to time constraints, I didn't get to mess with composition too much, (I'd like to add some street Beatniks at some point and a proper background) but my process in that regard isn't so different from any other artist, I'll start with a post-it sized drawing, figure everything out and then transfer it to a larger sheet of paper.

I'm left-handed and smudge a lot when I draw, so I use a very hard lead (4H) to block out shapes and proportions, when I'm happy with the pose and everything, I'll draw everything up in much the way an inker would, however, I do this in HB pencil. This is all done in a 9"x 12" sketchbook, I should add.

If I were to add a background, I would do this with a lightbox on a different sheet. I try to be as messy as I need to be here and clean up as I go. (The Aquaman piece, seen lower on the homepage for instance, was done on 5 seperate sheets of paper.)

Okay, I'll admit I got overexcited and forgot to scan a step, sorry. Here, I lightbox all of the messy pencils onto a nice, clean sheet of bristol in HB pencil. Since I've made my light source decisions in the sketchy phase, I don't shade the piece in pencil, preferring to create mass entirely in marker.

Basically, I use Cool and Warm gray tone markers and try to create textures for different surfaces. (Leather boots, soft leather for the jacket, hair, etc.) While also taking the light source into account.

I finish by inking the outer edges in black with Faber-Castell pens, and soften the edges with a black color pencil. I find this makes the drawing kind of pop off the page a bit more.

I then scan the image and flat it out, nothing fancy.

Then I proceed to color it in Photoshop CS5, no real science behind it: I use the stock brushes and probably way too many layers, and voilà! One Madman drawing done by yours truly!


I hope this has been interesting, and that you've enjoyed the piece.

Thanks for reading!