Michael’s 19th assignment was a challenge. He had an Al Rio prelim, rendered loosely with only outlines for a suggested cityscape and he asked me to “finish” it. Unlike some inkers who dive right in over the prelim with ink, I needed to better render the pencil drawing first so I finished it loosely in pencil and then I finished it in ink, further adding & editing from the pencil guide. This art filled up the entire board which was larger than 11X17, but the board didn’t lend itself well to inking because when I was lifting a low-tack frisket sheet from it (after spattering the rooftop) some surface paper lifted off the board around Spidey’s left thigh and I did my best to recreate that section. I used my brush, Pitt brush marker, markers, zip, drybrush and black ink spatter. My 4th Spider-man commission met fruition on 11/10/2007. “Thwip!”

Al’s prelim layout sketch

My loose pencils

My ink finishes