Let's Flip the Script

Two frames to post today. I decided to make a bit of a change about how I work, and if you pay close attention you can see the change happening between these two frames. For most of Green Monk I've been sketching out each frame with a 4H graphite pencil. I started out using a mechanical pencil, and found that I couldn't get the crisp sharp lines I wanted, so I switched to a wood ensconced graphite.

The reason for the graphite was that it was very forgiving. I could try different things and erase and start over. This worked for awhile, but lately I've been dissatisfied. I still have a hard time doing a really sharp clean up with the graphite. Once I work it too much it's impossible to erase away, which always leads to me trying to clean up digitally. This in turn causes a messier finished look and a loss of a lot of the fine pen strokes.

So I decided to work with red col-erase. I've been hesitant to use col-erase in the past because it doesn't erase very easily, especially after more than two tries. But when it comes to digitizing and cleaning up my art, it leaves no trace (like a good boy scout).

And I think I like that the col-erase is less forgiving. It forces me to be much more methodical about what I'm doing. I take more time to test out thumbnails, and when I'm ready to put pencil to paper I'm much more deliberate and careful.

Take a close look. I think you can see the difference here. Frame 1, graphite pencil. Frame 2, red col-erase. Feel free to point out anything else that I didn't notice.

Fun With Pencils

A couple sketches from the sketchbook:

Lo, the Mighty Sketch Dump

Here's the first of a two part sketch dump. You'll notice some brush work here. Its all done with a Pentel Color Brush. I started using it after harassing Bill Pressing at Comi-con about what he uses. I'm finding I really like inking with this thing. My line work has a ways to go, but I'm having fun.






Sketched while watching some UFC:


Started as a stylized profile of my wife, and turned into a concept sketch for DUNE. One of my favorite features of my wife is her "beaked" upper lip. It comes to a point in the middle of the lip rather than at the top of the lip. There's something very delicate about it.


A bunch of stuff drawn with mechanical pencil. Mechanical pencil is great to sketch with. If you get a nice soft lead, it erases easily and you can rework and build up your sketch as you go. The downside is it smears like a beast, and its not as sharp looking as drawing with a prismacolor or a polychromos pencil.

As a result I have to spend a lot of time on the computer cleaning up my sketches so they look ok.







Stay tune for part 2. It'll be all cute girls!

Process

Mostly for my own benefit, I thought I'd walk through the process of the last piece I did. I'll try and point out the steps in the process that have been breakthroughs for me. This is still going to be pretty general-not a full blow tutorial-so if you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line.

Okay, so a couple of nights ago I was feeling like pushing myself to do something dynamic, unique and a little sexy. I had just read through Claire Wendling's drawers 4.0 sketchbook, and was very inspired, and I had picked out a couple of visuals things she had done that I wanted to try out.

So I started by doodling a bunch of poses in my sketchbook, just trying to loosen up and find something that really grabbbed me. I tried to focus on using interesting shapes to build the poses, to try and break myself out of the cliches of what an arm or a torso, or a head should look like.


After showing the sketches to my wife and getting her feedback. I decided I liked this one:


So I ran it up to my scanner, scanned it in and converted the lines to a light blue in Photoshop. Then I printed it out using the "scale to fit media" option in the print preview window which blew it up about 400%.

Once I had a print-out with the rough sketch on it, I started sketching over it with a mechanical pencil. At this stage I am trying to build a solid structure, and resolve any issues with proportion and anatomy.

To make these issues easier to spot, I flip over the artwork and hold it up to a light. The mirror image makes problems with anatomy and proportion stick out like a sore thumb. I rework challenging areas until they feel right. There's a temptation to ignore the problem areas here, but I try consciously to find them and redraw them until they work.

I find her kinked elbow and bottow knee to be particularly challenging so I reference some anatomy books and beg my wife to pose for me, and then keep drawing and erasing until it works.

Mechanical pencil and eraser on typing paper is great at this point. It's a very forgiving combination, and feels more like scultping than drawing as I try and refine the forms.

I'm also trying to focus on keeping the shapes as simple as possible. At one point I draw her arm super chiseled and ripped, and decide that the detail is too much, and not very feminine, so I push it back to a more simplified shape.

At the end of the that stage I've got a rough sketch that looks like this:


You can see I've also decided on the details here. I really shouldn't have any major changes after this stage, just cleanup and tightening up the details.

There is still one big anatomy issue I need to resolve. Her torso is too long. I ask my wife what she thinks, and she agrees. Normally I don't suggest making fixes in photoshop, but everything else in the sketch is working well enough that I don't think its worth it to redraw the top half, just to scoot it down a quarter inch.

So I scan it back into Photoshop, cut out some waist area, and print it out again as light blue. This time I print it out on and 8.5 x 11 piece of bristol board. We're getting close to finishing!

Now, I do the tight pencil work. The whole purpose here is to create a guide for inks. I've found that tight pencils make for tight inks. When I don't define my lines first in pencil, trying to control my ink lines is like trying to tame a wild stallion. Again I'm using the mechanical pencil. I try and focus on maintaining the freshness of the sketch. I have to redraw the face two or three times until it feels right.

There shouldn't be anything at this point that I haven't resolved or defined. The ink stage should add very little to what I have here.

*picture of pencils Brandon should have scanned goes here*

On to the inks.

I won't go too in depth on inks right here. Basically I'm using larger strokes for larger shapes, areas of focus, and the underside of objects to give them weight. Smaller lines for details and to suggest form. Even the forms in the background should have some line quality here.

I have to make a couple of fixes with correction fluid, but nothing big.



I'm working with 3 different sizes of pen here. A PMOP porous point for the heaviest lines, a pilot fineliner for most everything else, and .02 micron pen for all the fun little details. I wear a cotton glove with the forefinger and thumb cut out to keep my had from catching on the paper and messing up my lines.

From here I scan it back into the computer at a very high resolution and begin to color. I suggest keeping it over 800dpi. Anything less and the linework starts to suffer when we get into the coloring stage.

From here I followed Ben Caldwell's coloring tutorial found here.

The great secret here is that to get the best line quality you want to forget about anti-aliasing, and pump up your resolution. Jordan Crane also has some good words to say on the subject.

When I got to adding shadow and stuff I got real airbrushy, but I don't think I went too far. Anyway here's the end result: