Behind The Comics IIX - Nicolò Pellizzon

Nicolò Pellizzon impressed us with his mysterious submission to our artventurous issue. Now, after a short introduction, it is time to take a look behind his comics entitled 'Stolen Paintings'!

Nicolò Pellizzon was born 1985 in Italy. He studied painting in Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet. He nearly finished his first book of comics and illustrations, called Anatomy Lessons and his work has been featured in the Italian anthologies Teiera, Delebile and G.I.U.D.A. Next to drawing he likes swimming in dark scary lakes and reading novels by Ursula K. Le Guin and Richard Matheson.

You can also follow Nicolò on tumblr and twitter.

So here he tells how he created his comics for š! #11 'artventurous':

Generally when I draw a comic I do always the same things, but in a scattered and nebulous order.
For example, I can write part of a scene and then stop after four words to draw something or to write a dialogue. Sometimes I begin drawing and writing at random.

In the case of "Stolen paintings", I knew that the protagonist would be a thief (without understanding it completely, I thought about "Cat's eye").
Meanwhile I had about a dozen of drawings that I liked, but which had nothing to do with the thieves.
Among these was the drawing of the saint which is in the first page. It seemed to me it could be a good strong image to begin a story.

While I drew and round off the various characters, the story came out in small pieces, even though I already had a confused idea of what happens. I had a thief, a dark man and a martyr and a story to write between them. This part of the process is continually broken by some sketches of the main scenes. In the left of the photo there is the story (very badly written) and in the right paper a draft of the dialogues.
 

 

I use kolinsky brushes and brush pens, some are very ruined. I prefer the one in the middle. It looks ruined when it's dry.

In this photo there is a frame that I have cut off. On the right side there's the pencil draft. I try always to use pencils as little as possible. I have the impression that the result comes out more spontaneous.
 

Before starting with the pages I do microscopic storyboards (you can see them near the draft of the text) to preview the composition of the frames.
I use the same grid in multiplies of two (sometimes of three - the rigorous grid It's a way to focus only to the drawing), then I draw, inking and correct three pages at time. I begin from more difficult parts, then the campiture and in the end the details.

I cover the parts that I don't' like with patches or refine with tempera paint and acrylic white.

In the end I scan everything and compose the pages in photoshop with the handwritten lettering and the grid. I do always a print preview to check if everything works out ok. Printing tests are nice to stick on the wall.

Thanks very much to Nicolò Pellizzon for giving this insight! Make sure to visit his website and if you don't know the story he talks about, you should probably get the artventurous š! #11. Also you should look out for his upcoming Graphic Novel Anatomy Lessons. It will be out in November published by Grrrzetic - here is the cover art: