How It's Done: The Wings of Cranes and Eagles, copyright 1999-2008 Kaichi Satake

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"The Wings of Cranes and Eagles" is dedicated to my dearest friend, confidante, and Dragon Twin, Houlgate Davenport (Feb. 28, 1928 - May 12, 2000). I love you, Houlgate, with all my heart.

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The Making of Wings of Cranes and Eagles

Some folks have asked me what materials I use for drawing "The Wings of Cranes and Eagles." You may be surprised to find I use no ink, only pencils, and no computer special effects. The only parts done with Photoshop are the word balloons and lettering.
I'm using 12 x 17 inch smooth surface Bristol paper with an image area of 10 x 15 inches. (This size is standard for the U.S. comic book industry.) I use a variety of pencils for the linework and shading: B or HB mechanicals for dark, sharp lines; 2H for medium shading; 4H for very light shading; and occasionally, an ebony for soft dark shadows. I used to use 5H mechanical leads for very sharp linework, and while they look great and stay cleaner on paper, they don't transfer well through the scanner. (You can see this in the early pages of "Wings;" they're much lighter than the later ones.) The mechanicals in B or HB seem to work best for the linework.
Many of my characters have black hair (and the period calls for lots of black cars!), so you can imagine how much time it takes to fill in all these areas with pencils. I spend anywhere from two to four days on the actual drawing of each page of "Wings," due to the fact that I must stop, often, to let my hand rest. I could do it twice as fast, if I were using ink, but then I wouldn't get the "old silent movie" look I'm going for.
I script the story well ahead of time, and I average about three pages of artwork per page of script. When finished, the graphic novel should run about 360 pages, total--the equivalent of fifteen 24-page comic books. The story also requires lots of research. I want to make sure the buildings, vehicles, fashions, etc. are as authentic as possible, so I spend a great deal of time searching for and studying old photos and movies, to catch the little details that, to me, make all the difference. If I lag behind on updating the story, you can bet I'm either having trouble finding my "little details," I'm out of paper or whatever lead I've been using, or I'm sick (this happens a lot, unfortunately). I apologize for the times I'm late with updates. I do my best to insure the story gets updated in a reasonably timely fashion.
Below, you'll see the initial sketch for the Pasadena library shot, for page 17. Later, I'll try to have a step-by-step explanation for this comic, as I have here how-to, for my ongoing science fiction/espionage comic, ShadowFall. --Kaichi

The story:
Los Angeles, 1935

Page 1...(70K)
Page 2...(74K)
Page 3...(57K)
Page 4...(69K)
Page 5...(89K)
Page 6...(102K)
Page 7...(102K)
Page 8...(95K)

Page 9...(94K)
Page 10...(96K)
Page 11...(84K)
Page 12...(85K)
Page 13...(81K)
Page 14...(116K)
Page 15...(123K)
Page 16...(95K)

Page 17...(102K)
Cultural notes

Characters

How It's Done

Merchandise

		God Bless America!
Comics \| Fiction \| Aviation Art \| Guest Art/Pinup Gallery \| IRC \| About the Artist \| Store \| Links \| Wallpaper\| Forum \| Contact Me

Wings Cast \| Showa-Era Japan \| The Making of Wings \| Wings Homepage
The Making of Wings of Cranes and Eagles
Some folks have asked me what materials I use for drawing "The Wings of Cranes and Eagles." You may be surprised to find I use no ink, only pencils, and no computer special effects. The only parts done with Photoshop are the word balloons and lettering. I'm using 12 x 17 inch smooth surface Bristol paper with an image area of 10 x 15 inches. (This size is standard for the U.S. comic book industry.) I use a variety of pencils for the linework and shading: B or HB mechanicals for dark, sharp lines; 2H for medium shading; 4H for very light shading; and occasionally, an ebony for soft dark shadows. I used to use 5H mechanical leads for very sharp linework, and while they look great and stay cleaner on paper, they don't transfer well through the scanner. (You can see this in the early pages of "Wings;" they're much lighter than the later ones.) The mechanicals in B or HB seem to work best for the linework. Many of my characters have black hair (and the period calls for lots of black cars!), so you can imagine how much time it takes to fill in all these areas with pencils. I spend anywhere from two to four days on the actual drawing of each page of "Wings," due to the fact that I must stop, often, to let my hand rest. I could do it twice as fast, if I were using ink, but then I wouldn't get the "old silent movie" look I'm going for. I script the story well ahead of time, and I average about three pages of artwork per page of script. When finished, the graphic novel should run about 360 pages, total--the equivalent of fifteen 24-page comic books. The story also requires lots of research. I want to make sure the buildings, vehicles, fashions, etc. are as authentic as possible, so I spend a great deal of time searching for and studying old photos and movies, to catch the little details that, to me, make all the difference. If I lag behind on updating the story, you can bet I'm either having trouble finding my "little details," I'm out of paper or whatever lead I've been using, or I'm sick (this happens a lot, unfortunately). I apologize for the times I'm late with updates. I do my best to insure the story gets updated in a reasonably timely fashion. Below, you'll see the initial sketch for the Pasadena library shot, for page 17. Later, I'll try to have a step-by-step explanation for this comic, as I have here how-to, for my ongoing science fiction/espionage comic, ShadowFall. --Kaichi