If you follow my “online art gallery” at all, you’ll know I love comic book art. And if you saw one of my recent posts featuring my own rendition of Mister Fantastic, you’ll know I can’t draw worth a damn. So what’s a guy who loves the art but can’t make it to do?

If you said, “Use AI,” you are a monster, and I need you to get the Hell out of here in a hurry. That shit is never the answer. Never.

(Sorry to curse, but I’m fucking serious here.)

One great solution is getting art from artists. Often, that takes the form of commissions, wherein you connect with an artist and request a specific character, characters, scene, etc. For those new to this idea or who love process, I thought it might be fun to take you through an example using this recent commission from Chris Ouellette.

First, A History Lesson!

A word of clarification to start. This is not the TYPICAL commission process for me. Most of my art is the result of me just requesting a character (“I’d love a Daredevil from you. God knows I don’t have any Daredevil art.”) or getting something that already exists, like a page from a comic book or an original pinup piece the artist made without request or direction from anyone else. However, Chris and I have known each other more than two decades and are (I hope!) friends, so when I get a commission from him, I usually get a bit more involved.

Even that, though, has evolved over time. My first Oullette piece was a Manhunter/Aztek team-up. As I often do with artists, I gave him a list of characters and invited him to select one he thought he’d like to draw. He counter-proposed with a shorter list and encouraged me to choose two. As I am history’s #1 Aztek the Ultimate Man fan AND think of the Kate Spencer Manhunter as starring in a similarly underappreciated title, I chose those two. The rest was all Chris.

Things grew in complexity from there. For instance, for a few years, I was very motivated to get a Daredevil commission with Matt Murdock (shhh…that’s Daredevil’s real name!) in the DD costume that was also a three-piece suit. The hunt went…poorly. But I had a moment of inspiration. If I can’t get a DD in his three-piece suit commission that looks good, what if I got a commission with him and Moon Knight in their three-piece looks? Even better, what if I threw in another character who doesn’t wear a three-piece suit but would balance out the image in terms of colors and the rule of three! So I landed on The Shroud for my third and went to Chris. However, it was he who more thoroughly designed Shroud’s be-suited look and proposed the perfect idea that it look like the kind of Vanity Fair “These are Hollywood’s New Stars” photo spread that was huge in the naughty aughties.

With each subsequent commission, it became less me dumping an idea on his desk and saying, “do this!” and more me rolling up my sleeves and offering something a bit more helpful.

Ok, Enough of That! The Present Calls!

That brings us to this newest piece. Get ready for the ride!

The Proposal

This part of the process is largely the same as it ever was. I talk to Chris and give him a bunch of ideas of stuff I’d like, asking him if any of them tickle his fancy. Among the options this time were “Captain Marvel and the Marvellettes” which would be Carol Danvers in her helmeted look with the cool hair, the latest Binary, Ms. Marvel, the original Captain Marvel in his green and white costume (people sleep on that look and it low cool rules), Star, the evil Captain Marvel with the black costume and red starblast for a face, etc; a Spider-people jam piece; and the one he ultimately chose, Obscure, Forgotten or Cancelled Too Soon DC Characters of the 2000s (as in the 2000-2009, not the entire century).

Once he pegged that one, I went to work on the characters I thought I’d like to see in it. Then I sent those to him to ensure I hadn’t chosen too many and/or there were none he was like, “No, they suck too hard.” He’s never turned down a character, but sometimes the list gets massaged a bit. That was the case here as I was debating between Bulleteer and Cyclone, the JSA teen, for one slot. I should’ve trusted myself, as Chris preferred Bulleteer, my initial choice.

References and My Drawing?!?!

Once we’ve agreed on what’s being drawn, I get a bunch of references together for Chris. Most of the time, they are just of the characters themselves, although occasionally I’ll pull something that illustrates a specific pose or action I don’t feel like I can accurately describe in words.

Then, increasingly, I send Chris my horrible version of what I think it should look like. This is almost entirely about layout, as I rarely draw more than stick figures. As you can see in the examples here, I didn’t even do that much, instead using their names to indicate placement, followed by a short write-up explaining what I see the characters as doing. As you can tell, specificity varies. Most of the time, I don’t have much, but for some—like Breach in this case—I have a picture in my head.

This is also the stage where I make it clear what “look” I want for the characters. So many of them have multiple costumes or multiple interpretations of costumes, so I want to make sure I properly describe the versions/interpretations I’m looking for. On very rare occasions, this will include me offering an interpretation of my own. For example, one of the few solo character pieces of Chris’s I own is Daredevil as The Nameless One, a thing that happened in only one issue of the character’s series. However, he didn’t have a mask in that depiction, and I wanted one for him. So I came up with the idea of a torn mask that ties in the back. Chris took that note and made it sing.

All of this is unusual for me when it comes to getting art. Generally, as I can’t draw, I try to give artists a lot of room to do their thing. Defer to expertise and all that. But, as noted above, because Chris and I are friends and he encourages me to contribute, I tend to be more active/directive with him.

For this commission, I didn’t have much in mind at first. Then I wanted a big Y2K in the center, originally as concrete-style lettering like Eisner’s Spirit covers. Chris, instead, recommended a smoother and shinier style to fit the “Welcome to the New Century” vibe.

Chris Takes Over

Once I deliver my stuff, Chris gets to work. Typically, as he did here, he’ll send me between 3 and 5 very rough layout thumbnails for how the work should be arranged/look. We usually go back and forth a bit here. We aren’t arguing, but I can be kind of “Wow, they’re all so great!” It therefore takes a bit to convince me it is ok to have preferences. Eventually, I narrow it down, though. Chris then says something like, “Yeah, I think that’s exactly the right choice,” so I can feel good about it.

From then on, I’m pretty much just responding to updates with, “Oh, that looks great,” because it pretty much always does. Now and then, I’ll have tweaks. On this one, it was because I had miscommunicated a little about Black Alice’s powerset. Chris thought she could copy anyone close to her’s powers, but she can actually mimic the powers of anyone magic. So she went from mocking Miss Martian by doing a goth version of her look to being Mary Marvel, Black Alice style.

This may be the biggest change I’ve ever made at this point. The only one that’s close that I can think of is specifying what criminal organization “sponsors” Bruiser has on his costume, and that was mostly at Chris’s request anyway.

Loose pencils lead to pencils lead to inks to, last but certainly not least, colors.

And then, voila, a commission is born. And every time, it kind of blows my mind. I can’t comprehend having that talent and so much of it. It’s amazing. And I deeply appreciate and respect it.