Assorted sketchbook stuff, etc.

Let's start with something new.

I bought a new sketchbook yesterday, which was totally unnecessary, and this is the first thing in it. It's sketchy and quick, but I kind of like it because it's one of the better pictures of Raen I have. It's also pretty illustrative of the kind of relationship he has with Gabriel.

This is the big sketchdump I put on Deviantart a few days ago, but now I have the time and I feel like talking about it a little. Gabriel has been showing up a lot in my thoughts and sketches lately, but I'm not entirely certain as to why.  He is my oldest muse and I depend on him quite a bit for direction. So yes, in order of appearance:

Top Left: Gabriel in an elven style sweater outfit. It's almost Hollowellian in design, which I guess would make more sense if I ever shared my concept and costume designs for the Hollowells. Haha.

Top Right: A thumbnail sketch of the Junk Sphinx. One of the other cyborg monsters that roams the wasteland.

Directly below Gabriel: Privilege in a winter bunny outfit. I ended up liking this sketch so much that I took it into photoshop and posted a colored version on Deviantart. I am now more pleased with the sketch than I am with the final version. Oh well.

Next to Privilege: 3 AM is a great time to scribble mindlessly while listening to Beyonce. I don't know, I guess the thought was that Raen is a whiny romantic so of -course- he'd transcend time and universes to sit around in women's lingerie sobbing over a telephone in the desperate hope that Gabriel will FINALLY PAY ATTENTION TO HIM. Again, I don't know, but it's funny.

Directly below beyonceRaen: Tiny Junk Sphinx head.

Below Privilege: Yep, the Luka chibi again. It never got a makeover in photoshop because I am lazy.

Next to the Luka Chibi: You know those "draw this again" memes that keep popping up over deviantart? I didn't really want to share any of my super old and embarrassing art, so I just decided to reconfigure one of Gabriel's old costumes. It's pretty skanky, but I get the impression that sorcerers are expected to bare some midriff while they toast the country side with flaming pillars of destruction.

Below all of that: The Junk Sphinx! It didn't really deviate far from the barebones sketch at the top of the document, which is cool. I usually go through a long and exhausting process of designing my cyborgs and I am rarely pleased with the results.

Finally: Gabriel and chibi Gabriel. This is how he currently appears in my head.

After having typed all this up, I realize I never crossposted my first sketchdump to this blog. It's not super interesting, but maybe I'll do that later. Once we get a little further along towards New Year, I'll probably do a self evaluation post with a summary of  my art in 2011. The only other thing I can think of that is pertinent to art is that my stupid tablet pen is jacked up, which is making it nearly impossible to do all the comic work I set out to do! Argh. I have some replacement nibs coming soon, and if that doesn't fix the problem, I get to pay more money for a new pen. Crap in a hat.

Maybe if I coax and coo and smile prettily enough, my stupid pen will behave enough to let me do a little more work on my current page. Then I can put up a teaser pic. In any case, I feel kind of crappy, so it's time to lie down and play more Minish Cap.

Privilege and Process

Hey guys. I'm totally back. Sort of. Life is kind of stupid right now so art helps me kind of deal with what's going on. I won't go into details because it's not interesting, but I will share some of the stuff I'm working on. I actually have a lot of projects and sketches going on, but today I'm going to talk a little bit about my process from start to finish.

Because I have generally stupid habits, I tend to do a lot of work in my sketchbooks, instead of planning drawings on nicer, better paper. It's probably because when I draw, I start really rough and abstract. I might have an inkling or an idea, but it's generally chaos and pencil lines until I start to erase and curse a lot. I started with a teeny scribble in the right corner of the character, Privilege, and the sketches on the side are just me trying to work out what the demon that lives inside her neck looks like. I'm currently working quite a bit in a moleskine style teNues sketchbook that I always have with me, and the paper is very thin and not very well suited to markers. Oh well. Moving on.

Lining! The part in the process I actually hate. It wasn't until more recently when I started to use liners in different colors, and I am really loving the browns and reds. Black, I feel sometimes makes me hypersaturate my color choices. Or it just makes my colors look funny. I might be crazy. Whatever. I love black, but right now I'm liking the idea of adding black after all my colors are locked down. It makes for crisper lines.

She's done! I know this seems like a big jump and if I had actually been planning this as a process-oriented post, I would have done some scans of the progress in coloring, but I just... didn't think of it. There are times when I know exactly which colors to use and times when I have no idea and fly by the seat of my pants. This is an example of the former. I always start with the face and hair as a habit, and then move on when I feel like I have sufficient definition.

When working with mixed media, I start with layers of markers. I use neopiko and copic, but I have a few prismacolor pens floating about. I don't really prefer them because I love the flexibility of a brush tip. It's generally good to have a sense of organization to the way you color and I kind of....don't have that very well. After a certain amount of time with marker, I tend to get restless and pull out my inks/pencils/whatever.

I have found that some of the ink sticks made for the coletto multipen systems bleed when exposed to water, as do many gel pens, and this can be used to great advantage to shade and color. I lined a few sections in the hair and placed a few small lines in the legs and cardigan, then I took my waterbrush and pulled the color from those lines to shade nearby areas.


After some lengthy tuning with the waterbrush and some watercolor pencils/aquamonolith/multicolored daiso ballpoints, the last thing to do is clean up bits and pieces with a white gel pen. I use a wonderful pilot gel pen which makes very clear, consistent lines. It's easy to go crazy with the white because it's fun, but it can add a lot of distracting lights and make things look plastic, so I am trying to use it with more purpose. So I primarily used it to soften harsh lines and add shine to the hair.

Then I took it into photoshop and cleaned it up, slapped a border on it and signed it.

Maybe I'll do a boring post on my tools next! Or a better process post. Hahaha. <3