Malakili is so happy to be able to let his friend the Rancor out to play! This was a fun project to work on (they all are, really), and I want to walk you through a bit of the process here a bit more.

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I always start with pencil sketches, then refine the best one on a larger 8.5X11" piece of printer paper. After I'm satisfied with that full-size sketch, I use a lightbox to redraw it on a clean piece of 100lb Bristol board. Next I ink the piece with Micron pens (using a .08 most of the time) and sometimes India ink with a brush.

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I take the finished piece and scan it in 2 parts (because the flatbed isn't big enough for a 9x12 sheet) at 1200ppi which gives me a working size of 36X48" at 300ppi for printing. I color the piece in Photoshop at this size and when finished, I flatten it then resize it as I need to for printing at various sizes. I do all my coloring in CMYK mode with many, many layers in Photoshop.

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*A note about the undercolor process: this is something I learned as a comic book colorist. I select all of the black lines in Photoshop, then decrease the selection by 2 pixels and add a new layer and fill that selection with 60C, 40M, 40Y, 0K. This helps give the blacks a nice rich black upon printing.