Painting the X-Men By Paolo Rivera

Mythos: X-Men, Page 8. 2005. Oil on board, 16 24. I've been a Muddy reader since the blog's inception, so it's a great honor to be a contributing artist. My favorite posts have always been about process, so I thought an appropriate introduction to my work should involve just that. Specifically, my first few posts will explore the series of styles and media I've employed over the years, as well as the reasons for shifting gears. I began my professional career as an oil painter, and have slowly evolved into a traditional comic book style over the last 10 years. Mythos: X-Men, featured here, was the first book where I felt comfortable with my styleprior to that, every page was a true struggle. This book was still challenging, but I at least knew what my goal was and how to get there. The only drawback was the amount of time needed, and this 23-page comic (plus cover) took me roughly 10 months to complete. I was also painting other covers at the time, but my output was not adequate by any measure.

1. Pencil Layout, 4 6 2. Digital Color Study While my media have changed since this issue, my mental process is nearly identical. I begin each page with a small layout to work out compositions and ensure legibility (although now I sketch digitally). This rough is then scanned into Photoshop for a digital color study.

3. Pencils, 8 12 4. Finalized Color Study Once approved by my editor, it's just a case of refining the draftsmanship and color scheme. It may seem like a superfluous step, but it removes any doubt when it comes time to paint. Doubt can be an inspiring opponent, of

course, but not when I'm trying to meet a deadline.

5. Transfer to Board 6. Final Painting. Using a projector, I would transfer the page to custom-cut, primed masonite with burnt umber, a fast-drying oil pigment, often using odorless mineral spirits to draw by wiping back to the surface. I wouldn't do a full-fledged grisaille underpainting, but important areasfaces, hands, etc.were fully rendered. Borders were painted in acrylic and taped off. I ended up adding the borders digitally for print, but the extra effort allowed me to sell the original paintings. The palette pictured above is a cookie sheet that locked into place with 2 rubber door stops on the underside of the easel. It was easily removed for more detailed work. At one point, I used a glass palette so I could mix colors on top of my digital color study. It was a nice trick, but I got tired of cleaning the surface.

Panel 4 After that, it was just a case of mixing the right color and putting it in the right place. I would often paint directly on my digital print to ensure the right color mix. While I was happy with the results, this took far too much time and ended up being my last issue in oil. Scanning was a challenge in itself, and I ended up spending a month just removing dust and glare from the pages in Photoshop. That alone was enough to send me searching for another way to paint. In my next post, I'll show how I made the switch to acrylic and gouache with Mythos: Hulk.

Panel 5 On Contrast, Part 1 of 3 The following is an expanded excerpt from my Brooklyn Public Library Lecture.

The heart of human perception is contrast. Through the comparison of various sets of information, our subconscious minds are able to construct a visceral model of the environment that enables us to navigate through it. But this benefit has its costs: because our sensations are based on relative comparisons, our subsequent interpretations are not absolute. One major consequence of this is that we are easily fooled by context. My favorite example of this has nothing to do with vision, though the same principles apply. Lets say you submerge one hand in cold water, and the other in hot, allowing time for each to adapt to the temperature. Upon

touching the same object with each hand, you will feel opposing sensations: one warm, the other cool. This means you are the worlds worst thermometeryou have no independent scale for judging assorted values and are at the mercy of circumstantial evidence.

Mythos: Fantastic Four, page 17, panels 3, 4 2007 acrylic and gouache on bristol board 11 x 17" In this scene from Mythos: Fantastic Four, the Human Torch, flaming on for the first time asks, Is it cold in here? Ive always liked that line from Paul Jenkins because it reveals the level at which hes immersing himself in the situation. For someone who is burning (comfortably), the world must feel frigid, much like someone who is running a fever. I bring up this image for another reason as well. I am often asked how I paint firehow to make it glow. Its all about context. By controlling the visual situation, I can let people know that whitethe brightest option I have means light. The surrounding gradient indicates the lights color. Every other value in the composition is significantly darker. In my own nerdy mind, I call this the lightsaber effect. The light source (the blade) is the brightest value, surrounded by color, surrounded by dark of any kind. I've pixelated the following image in order to exaggerate and, hence, clarify the relationships among the color values.

The effect is further promoted through reflected light, as in the image of Yoda, below. This is why some of the human jedi in Star Wars movies might look a bit off: the glow is added in post-production, so no light is actually emitted from the blade; whereas the computer generated characters are appropriately lit (if poorly animated).