Into the Design Lab: Frank Frazetta 3

Part three of a five part series, dissecting and analyzing the works of the award winning comic book artist and science fiction illustrator, Frank Frazetta.

In this series I deconstruct artwork to find the compositional, story, and structural devices... as well as reverse engineer some of the thinking involved in creating great art.

Part three: I tackle one of the bedrock of illustration, the fundamental decision making process that can either make or break an illustration. From the first conceptual rough drawing to final execution, I break down Frank Frazetta's important decision making process, and how that translated to the final product.

I'll also show you some of my roughs; and how I translated a screenplay into my ideation process. Unfortunately, many young artists skip over this basic step and jump right to the preliminary drawing where they work out basic structure, anatomy and perspective. The preliminary is NOT the rough ideation phase of the drawing.

In part three, I will reveal how Frank used to roughs to stage his illustrations, manage the compositions and rhythm, and then stayed on target all the way through the process. You will see how the rough stage is the blueprint for Frank Frazetta's entire process.

(I also discuss the use of reference. Whether you are working traditionally or digitally, if you're using reference to draw your roughs you're already making a mistake.)