A page layout for the 3D comic Skinner. © Digital Broome.

He saved money earned -- generating over three million comics sold annually for publishers like Marvel Entertainment, DC Comics, Image, Dark Horse and Acclaim -- and invested in the equipment and two years of schooling he needed. "I took all the money I had saved and invested in training and a license to work with Maya 2.5, a program used by Hollywood studios in the creation of animated feature films," he explains.

That investment totaled in the neighborhood of US$40,000, but as technology advances prices drop and today's artist could anticipate an investment of less than $10,000. For this comic artist the investment in training and tools has lead to his own digital art studio. Founded in 1996, the concept was to bridge the gap between two-dimensional illustration and 3D models.

With employees skilled in both the 2D and 3D arts, as well as video game programming, the group is creating more than just comic books. The company has also done television advertisements, movie trailers (including one now appearing for Titan A.E.), DVD custom art and menu creation, Webisodes for dotcoms, a recent Toonami ad campaign for Cartoon Network and even more traditional graphic arts such as a recent logo designed for the RCA recording artist Eve 6. Their client list includes Time Warner, Electronic Arts, Cartoon Network, Turner Broadcasting, MTV and FOX Entertainment.

Saffire was the first digital comic produced. © Digital Broome.

A New Comic Book
"We are working toward being the 'kings' of all art media," says Broome. "But, if we bridge the gap of taking comic book art digital it would be huge. But you need more than great programmers that know 3D. You need artists with a strong 2D background behind the machines because it is the only way to provide high-caliber models and maintain consistency with the conceptual sketches."

Toward that goal, Digital Broome has created their first digital book Saffire. In its creation, Broome applied 3D textures onto 2D art giving the textures and artwork more dimension, leading to increased visual weight and depth. "For the foreground elements, we have the 2D image and go into 3D and create bump maps which are grayscale maps that allow us to apply texture and patterns," he explains. "The finished artwork, though it started as a 2D image, has a very real, three-dimensional look to it."

Examples of other technology in use on the comic book page are the bubbles escaping from divers in an underwater scene. "If you look at the bubbles, they were created in 3D but we have touched them up using Photoshop," Broome says. "The end result is that when everything is extremely composited as a photo, it is hard to tell what began as 2D, 3D or linear making the images stronger and the visual story that much more compelling."