In regards to today's comic, I’m situated firmly on the side of the Neurospicy spectrum that finds things more interesting than people. Pretty girls? No thanks, I'll take a featureless monolith floating in space near Jupiter whose perfect ratio of 1:4:9 is inexplicably filled with stars.

Another of my Marvel Snap cards has arrived in the game! You can grab my Dr. Strange variant in the store right now!

Here’s a look at the steps that go into making one of these cards for those of you who are into that kind of thing.

First is a very rough sketch to figure out a pose that fits nicely within the confines of the cards' various other visual elements. I actually send a handfull of sketches like this (called thumbnails) to the art director who picks the one they want for the card.

Next is a more complete sketch that gets into the details of the piece.

Inks! Gotta love that Kirby Krackle.

Once the black and white piece is approved it's time for flat colors.

Then comes the final colors with effects.

The wizards over at Second Dinner are the ones who create the 3D effect. The tricky part is that in order for the 3D effect to work the artist has to draw everything, even parts of the art that would normally be occluded. You need to draw what is behind the character and any foreground element. A file like Strange here is probably around 50 distinct and seperate layers of art including parts of the image that would normally never be seen. It’s a lot of work but the results are so cool!

Here's an example of one element, the cape that needs to be drawn all on it's own.

I’d like to thank Second Dinner for giving me the opportunity. Long before Penny Arcade, little Mike’s goal in life was to draw comic books for Marvel. Getting to draw Dr. Strange, Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Deadpool and Captain America was an absolute dream come true. If you're playing Snap, I hope you enjoy my variants!

-Gabe out