Painting with Mark Sparacio – Chicago Wizard World By Bruce MacIntosh
Mark Sparacio has a background in illustrating advertising, and after that burn out, he has found the positive reinforcement of conventions and working with other artists "a lot of fun". In the comics world, he has drawn Liberty Girl, and many covers for Comics Buyers Guide. He has done a lot of work recently for Marvel, and currently DC has shown him a lot of interest and will be producing much work for them soon, such as Jonah Hex.
Mark works from photo reference and makes alterations to the drawing as necessary. The Golden Age Flash came from a photo of his (then) 17-year old son, Justin. "You want to find the basic body type as what you are drawing," and it worked for the Flash, even though the character is in his 50's. "What I am really looking for is the lighting and attitude." He even used Justin for the character Luke Cage for a Comic Buyers Guide cover – even though, of course, he is not a large, muscular black man.
He does the drawings on tracing (vellum) paper, turns it backwards – re-tracing it line for line, not shading it in. Turn that over again, re-trace it onto the Bristol board for painting.
Always wears a white shirt when he goes to paint. I didn't know this, but it makes sense: Your clothes will reflect on the surface of the paper, and affect the coloring of what you are painting.
Be very careful when you are touching the paper, because the watercolors will absorb and affect the watercolors.
This painting, he has already drawn and has blocked out the figures for the watercolor application:
"The first few passes are real washy and light."
"There are some lines here that are kind of dark, so… I will go back and erase them" with an eraser over the paint.
He recommends a wide range of brush sizes for his primary medium of watercolors. He occasionally uses an airbrush, and "frisk it around" for the backgrounds. (Friskit is a clear piece of tacky paper that you lay on the painting, cut around the figure, peel off the background. Now the figure is covered, so you can airbrush spray around the figure without ruining the figure itself.) On this piece, he is using watercolors for the background, because the person who commissioned it wanted a more textured background. The color he's using is the infamous "burnt umber".
For the cover of Green Lantern #175, he did the figure, then the background, then went over parts of the figure with the airbrush, "to give it the glow" around his body and the "halo effect" around the emblem.
"You want to keep the skin tones nice and smooth" and contrast that with textures.
He doesn't use color "studies" preliminary to the painting, because he considers that very time-consuming. However, he admits that some artists would consider the extensive penciling he does as an unnecessary step. That's why I go crazy with the sketches, to show [the commissioner] what they are getting" before moving on to the coloring step.
He does not throw out the brushes after using them, but will use them for big background work. Then, "when they get really ratty", he'll finally throw them out.
For shadows, he uses blue hues, such as Royal Blue or Cobalt Blue – depending on the depth or darkness desired for the shadow.
When you paint for advertising, you are painting for reproduction. Not so for a commission or comic book cover. There, you are painting for it to look good hanging on the wall. So, he must paint with bright colors for comics, rather than the muted tones for ad illustration.
He never uses ink under the painting – just pencils. After the painting is done, he scans the pieces on a scanner and sends them with ftp to his editor. "That way, the original painting never leaves my hands."
He will be illustrating a new Captain Action comic (interiors) for Moonstone Publishing soon, as well as Jonah Hex for DC. Rather than painting the panels, "it is all highly rendered" pencils, with coloring done by a digital colorist. The writers for Jonah Hex, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, specifically tailored a two-issue story to highlight Sparacio's painting skills. "Drawing horses is a real pain in the ass", so he has been doing a lot of research on the old west
Mark loves his relatively new career in comics ("It's been about 4 ˝, 5 years".) Said, Sparacio: "I'm having a blast."
Posts: 21381 | From: PA | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
This panel was a highlight of Wizard World for me. Mark gave a great presentation, and was very helpful and patient with his audience. The panel was only supposed to be an hour, but he wound up talking to us for over 90 minutes, until the room was needed again.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of Mark's work in comic shops soon, he is very talented and a class act, too!
-------------------- "Don't hate yourself in the morning. Sleep until noon." Posts: 26 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Dec 2001
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