Classroom illustration with roughs

This is a finished panel from an eight-page comic I did for a text-book company last year. Watch out! Those are aliens disguised as humans over there. Art Direction by Glenn Todunn.

This is the rough illustration for the classroom image.

It’s also the first illustration I used a colour system on, which I still use now.

I use Col-Erase pencils to rough just about everything I draw. I use different colours for each step of the illustration, building it as I go.

Light Blue for panel borders and other rules.

Light Green for objects and to define the 3D space I’m working in.

Scarlet Red for all the living characters within that space and finer details.

This saves me a lot of paper. I used to just trace stuff onto a new sheet every time it got messy. Also, I think I have a much better handle on 3D spaces now than I did then.

Related:
How to draw a crowd scene without going insane