Get better at panels

World of Tanks artist PJ Holden shows how to use real-world reference for comic art.

Comic art is one of the most rewarding, unusual and difficult art jobs you’ll ever have. Every new job is a challenge, requiring the application of multiple art techniques and a range of creative approaches.

When I was asked to finish World of Tanks for Dark Horse, I had a tight deadline, but I was also required to draw detailed, believable and most importantly, accurate tanks and other World War 2 vehicles. Unlike drawing futuristic war stories, you can’t just make this stuff up. These things exist and people know exactly what they look like.

Luckily, this means there’s usually a plethora of reference material out there. There are models, books, videos and, most precious of all, manuals – these will often show vehicles from the inside. This is crucial knowledge to have when you have a team of people inside a tank, and the book will be put in front of millions of readers who’ve all played the game and know exactly where the driver sits.

In this workshop I’ll take you through a page of a new creatorowned series I’m working on with Gordon Rennie called World War Thule. It’s set in the dying days of the War, and tells of a last-ditch effort of the Reich to find new resources in the Hollow Earth. We follow the allfemale crew of a German King Tiger Tank as it fights Atlanteans, dinosaurs and cavemen with weird futuristic technology…