A Battle of Wills! Tales From Nottingham #4 is Now Available!

Q: What does your creative process look like, and where do you draw inspiration from?

Diana: I like to start by just testing out some quick color palettes. I color everything very messily, it doesn’t even take me a minute, and from there I start to experiment to see what works, and what the overall look for the issue will be, or how to separate different scenes from each other. I also try a few rendering styles to see what works best with that particular style of lineart, and once I have all of that as a point of reference, I can get properly started.

I also like to keep a separate Photoshop file where I paste all the final pages so I can compare them to each other, and check if they maintain the tone and overall look for that issue, series, or graphic novel. That also makes it easier to quickly check certain details instead of having to open all of the pages to search for where it might be – Photoshop is a fickle creature, and that might tempt it to crash!

As for inspiration, I just look at lots and lots of art. I follow a lot of artists who do art in all sorts of styles, and whenever I see something that I really like, which inspires me, I save it in a folder just for my personal use, one that I reference a lot and scroll through whenever I need some inspiration. I look at them critically to try and see what I love about these works, and what I can do to get to a similar place / style. I do that with illustrations, comic pages, frames from movies, you name it. I think one of the best things artists can do is just be constantly surrounded by other people’s art, in as many different styles as possible, and be willing to change, try new things, and improve.