Graham Drews

[email protected]

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Comics display at the art show Chrysalis, April 2026

Sketchbook

Folk and Dagger Reference Sheets

Subliminal Space Designs (Unofficial)

About

Biography

Graham Drews was born in Louisville, Colorado in 2003. He received a BA in Visual and Performing Arts from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs in May 2026. He began working on comics in 2023 with his first work, Folk and Dagger (2023-2025), and later works such as Herbert West: Reanimator (2025), and RWBY Rose: From Dust Till Dawn (2026). He primarily uses digital art, and his work focuses on trauma and change, and how they affect people. He hopes to become a published, serialized comic artist. Drews was featured in the show Chrysalis at the Gallery of Contemporary Art at the Ent Center for the Arts From April 10th to May 15th, 2026. Graham Drews currently lives and works in Boulder County, Colorado.

Graham Drews
B. 2003, Louisville, Colorado
[email protected]
grahamdrews.comEducation
2026 - BA in Visual Arts, University of Colorado, Colorado SpringsGroup Exhibitions
2025 - Summer Exhibition Session 1, University of the Arts London, Camberwell.
London, UKSummer Exhibition Session 2, University of the Arts London, Camberwell.
London, UK2026 - Chrysalis, Galleries of Contemporary Art at UCCS
Colorado Springs, COWorks
Folk and Dagger - The Omnibus. Comic, 2023-2025.Herbert West - Reanimator. Comic, 2025.RWBY Rose: From Dust Till Dawn. Comic, 2026.

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Process Example - RWBY Rose: Chapter 2 - Superintendent

Superintendent is the second chapter of my comic, RWBY Rose and it is the chapter where I fully refined my process for creating comics. I have been using this workflow since this chapter and it is the one that works best for me - however, I am always looking for ways to better and refine it, and I am very open to changes in it if I am working with a client.

Step Zero - Outline

For my own comics, I generally start from the beat-by-beat plot outline I've written, which itself is based on a chapter outline for the whole story arc. This is a process of drafting, re-writing, cutting, and refining that I do to ensure a satisfying story. This process is ongoing and can take several years to fully finish the full outline, often well after I've started in on the comic itself. A chapter generally consists of 10 beats I know I want to hit, here are the beats that would later become the chapter Superintendent

I do it this way, instead of writing a concrete script before thumbnailing, to account for changes I want to make in the moment for things such as pacing and dialogue and to focus on overall reading and page flow. In this example, the chapter Superintendent came from 3 beats originally split between the chapters Glynda Goodwitch and Welcome to Beacon Academy, but many of the beats from the Glynda Goodwitch chapter ended up in the first chapter, From Dust Till Dawn. I also found that I wanted to expand this chapter beyond its original 3 beat structure, so it ended up becoming its own chapter.This flexibility is what allows me to make large changes like this without potentially interrupting production. I have used scripts before for my comic, and I have found this works best for my process.

Step One - Thumbnails

Thumbnailing is where I take the basic plot beats and expand them into something concrete and visual I can expand on. I tend to draw my characters as simply as possible, detail being reserved only for panels I have an extremely clear mental picture of. Here is where I plot out the visual flow of the comic across pages, testing it multiple times to ensure no page is difficult to follow.

This stage is also where I write all of the chapter's dialogue. When I was using scripts to write, I found that I would often write too much dialogue, forcing me to either slow the pacing of my chapter down or write massive blocks of text in the panels. Writing it here puts me more "in the moment" with regards to the characters' emotions and actions, leading to snappier, more effective writing that doesn't destract from the visuals.

Thumbnailing for a 30 page chapter like this generally takes 1-3 days depending on the complexity of the chapter and amount of dialogue

Step Two - Rough Sketch

This stage involves turning the rough idea and plan I had in the Thumbnail sketch into real imagery rather than pure gesture. This is where I replace my handwritten dialogue with real (though often not final) lettering as well. This stage is about figuring out what I want at all, so can vary wildly in terms of sketch quality, this is where I can fully see mistakes before they are too late to fix.

For this demonstration, I have opted to use page ten, as it must convey a huge amount of information purely visually, instead of through dialogue, so rendering the background effectively is critical.

The rough sketch stage can take between 3-5 days for a 30 page chapter.

Step Three - Refined Sketch

Refined Sketching is the process of bringing all of the refined sketches to a unified standard of quality, and also figuring out more vague drawings into concrete sketches I can then ink later. This stage makes the following inking stage significantly easier and faster, resulting in a quicker overall turnaround.

Refined sketching can take between 2-5 days depending for a 30 page chapter

Step Four - Inking

Inking is the process of turning the sketches into final lines, as well as drawing the final text bubbles. The prevous refined lineart stage makes this far easier by reducing the amount of mental effort spent deciding on which lines from the sketch should be followed.

Inking can take between 3-6 days for a 30 page chapter

Step Five - Shading

For a monochrome comic like RWBY Rose, I do shading in varous shades of grey, with the primary goal being to ensure every page is readable and every character pops out. I do gradients, but only on backgrounds, to make the characters more obviously stand out. For further away scenes, the greyscale shading can get very painterly. I also do a basic cell-shade on everything for depth or to emphasize light sources, such as the fireplace in this scene.

Shading generally takes between 2-4 days for a 30 page chapter

Step Six - Hatching

Hatching is the final stage of my process, and the one I find the most fun. It takes the basic and relatively flat look of the shading stage and turns it into a full world. Shapes are defined into forms, and swatches become stone, metal, hair, leather, cloth. Here, the textures and forms are finalized and the comic (after some copy-editing and proofreading for errors) is complete.

This stage takes between 2-5 days for a 30 page chapter.

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My Comics

Comics

Note: RWBY Rose is an unofficial fan work not affiliated with VIZ Media

68 page comic finished in 42 working days, from storyboards to final completion, at an average rate of ~10 finished pages per week with a consistent work pipeline allowing for revisions.

Chapter 3