It’s such a pleasure to work with someone as talented as Mike Cavallaro. Every stage of his process gives me its own distinct pleasure… Put together, the steps of page 47 from Curses! Foiled Again (written by Jane Yolen) is a feast for the eyes. First, Mike’s rough thumbnails, where he works out his basic page and panel compositions, word-balloon placements and such. The dynamic feel and the emotional staging of the page is here already:

 Then in the pencils stage, Mike establishes volumes and shading, and more detail, and in his case, this is without word balloons, which will reappear at the end—Then he inks the whole thing. Each stage involves choices, little things added, or taken away…

With inked page scanned in, color tests will explore different palettes (click to enlarge):

And words return with the final color! More Mike Cavallaro Magic!  This man is a pro, and a pleasure to work with. This is only one of his varied processes for making comics. In his next First Second project, prepare to be surprised and enchanted in a whole new way! In the meantime, discover Mike’s beautiful work in Jane Yolen’s Foiled! and Curses! Foiled Again…