Dark Tower Sketchbook

Title: Dark Tower Sketchbook
Date: 2006
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Artists: Jae Lee, Richard Isanove

Serving as a preview freebie for Marvel's The Gunslinger Born series based on Stephen King's fantasy novel series, The Dark Tower, this book introduces the artists and provides some sketch work and some insights into their techniques. Jae Lee's raw pencil and ink line art is perfect for the stark feel of King's writing, and it particularly shines on the character concept sketches that appear here. The best feature in this book, though, is Richard Isanove's walk-through of his work on a single panel, starting from a photograph, and taking the reader all the way through the addition of background colors, line art, and finally the digital painting process for the foreground elements. This is not meant to be a detailed "how-to", but it's definitely worth a look to anyone who's interested in the digital painting or digital coloring process.

Rating: 8/10