For the next part of our focus on The Red Wing artist Nick Pitarra, we have a look at how he, writer Jonathan Hickman and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg created the stand-out page of the first issue. This page (seen above), page seven for those wondering, depicts a time-traveling pilot disintegrating into a pile of dust and degraded machinery. It is a jaw-dropping page that stands up against anything we’ve seen in 2011.
Check out after the jump as Nick himself walks you all through how this incredible page was created.
Nick Pitarra: Here’s a little break down of how Jonathan, Rachelle, and I collaborate to bring The RED WING to life!
So far on The RED WING Jonathan and I have explored our process, ranging from chunks of tight scripts to very open ended Marvel style scripts as well. Overall, Jonathan is a HUGE help to me creatively, acting as an art director and guiding me quite a bit. He has such a strong sense of design, while I generally come from a place that is very literal and storytelling driven. And while that mind set is wonderful for clarity’s sake, as a visual storyteller you don’t want to talk down to the reader. So I’d say about every other page or so Hickman will challenge me think a little different with a panel layout change or two.
Page 7 of issue one is the visual image of the series. It’s my favorite published page I’ve drawn. Jonathan pitched the RED WING to me by saying “Wouldn’t it be cool to draw a time traveling fighter pilot aging and turning to dust when he gets shot down through time”. This page is that pitch realized!
Here are the four steps of the page creation process:
1) A rough
Jonathan just told me to draw a page with no real direction. He wanted me to explore the falling apart pilot concept on my own. I came up with this…
You can see how I took the concept and made it very literal. Plane falling apart. Close on the pilot realizing his fate. Gasping, teeth fall ling out, turning into a skull, sloped over bones in a suit, and finally, dust in the wind. Very literal, very ABC visual storytelling there.
2) A counter rough
Jonathan wrote back with this thumbnail and these notes. He called and talked to me about making it one visually striking image instead of a sequential page. His notes explain the rest!
3) A page
I took Jonathan’s concept and ran with it! This is where Jonathan and I shine together. When you combine his striking design sense with my fully realized detailed style, you get something that’s just wonderfully chaotic to look at. The maddening details from aging and breaking apart engine pieces, subtle backgrounds, and of course, the disintegrating pilot really have a wow factor (ego alert!).
4) Colors
This is why I love Rachelle. She took the mad chaos that Jonathan and I created and made it breathe and brought it to life. I mean, Rachelle made everything here seem deliberate and opened. The colors are soft and muted. They let subtle details be while still roping them in by grouping the foreground, mid ground, background elements, turning what was once a visual headache into wonderful harmony. FYI, the red colors have to do with the red shift concept of how light is affected in time/space travel, its also the concept behind the title, plus…it makes a pretty freaking cool rainbow effect in our time traveling backgrounds!
Hope everyone digs this little behind the scenes footage!
