Comics 101: Dexter Soy

Hi! Dexter Soy here! I'm a one-man army when it comes to creating the visuals of Marvel's premier Air Force pilot-superheroine, Captain Marvel, Superior Spider-Man and the Uncanny X-Force. I pencil, ink and color and then, pray that my editor and readers will like my pages. More or less, this is how I create pages for my gigs at Marvel Comics.

Where I work

This may depend on the artist's preferences, but I sure like working at home in Pangasinan. Weighing things out with my family, myself and my social life is hard. But I make sure to give and spend quality time with my family because my social life sucks already.

Of course, I also get burned out. It's good to get off the chair sometimes and do something way different from just drawing. Play a guitar or take a short walk so you'd feel refreshed when you go back to the drawing board.

How I work

Now, the fun part. Here's how I create a page for Captain Marvel!

Stage 1: This is a pretty straight forward page. I just needed to sort out from which angle will I portray each panel as seen on the first image.

Stage 2: At this stage, I now render everything in grayscale. Most of the time, I seem to change my mind on some of the layouts as I render through a page as you'll notice on the second panel of this page.

Stage 3: Now I color everything, add textures and give some bits of effects.

Now, it's your turn!

I believe an aspiring artist needs three things to stand out: practice, consistency, as well as variety. Getting inspired and enjoying what you do will help you a lot too!

Jerald Uy