Click to see the full image, as well as images and an explanation of my process for this strip.  

(The joke here, since I’ve had a lot of people ask, is that the aunties have gone to the inauguration not to see Obama, but rather to see Sanjay Gupta, the nominee for surgeon general and potentially the first South Asian American to serve in a cabinet level post.)  

First, I draw a pencil sketch based on the script.  

Once the sketch is approved, I draw final versions of the characters and objects to be included.  Then I ink these with Micron Pigma and Pitt brush pens.  

If necessary, I get my housemates to pose for silly reference photos.  

Once the linework is finished, I scan it and use Photoshop to isolate the inked lines.  These form the top layer, and I build up the coloring in three or four layers underneath (one opaque layer of base coloring, one transparent layer for shadows, one layer for supplementary color, etc.).  Once the final composition is in place, I add background images (in this case, Creative Commons licensed photos from a pre-inauguration concert).  Finally, I create panel frames and text using Flash (since it’s much easier to do in a vector program than Photoshop).

–

Brown Girls is a weekly webcomic written by Deepa Sood. See her blog.