Eleven Doctors

Here's my little tribute for The Doctor's 50th anniversary.

Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby!

Today marks the 96th anniversary of the birth of Jack Kirby. Here's my portrait of the great man for Kirby-Vision's annual birthday gallery.

Size matters

I have a tendency to draw quite small when character sketching. So in an effort to open things up a little I've been drawing to the full height of the page (14cm). The end result is a lot more satisfying as extra time was needed for the structure of the bodies. I did find though that once scanned, the carbon 'inks' did not render as strong as my smaller drawings and had to be touched up in Photoshop.

Testing 7 - Faces

Another pencil verses ink test. Top - Pencils (via PSD levels), below - Micron fineliner and brushpen.

Testing 6 - Portraits

Family portraits in pencils (via PSD levels - top) and Micron fineliner and brushpen (bottom).

Testing 5

Background lighting experiments in pencil via PSD levels.

Testing 4...

More pencils to inks via PSD. This time I tried to build up the strokes by drawing them several times in carbon. It feels a lot more natural than just trying to render a single line with a fineliner or brushpen.

Testing 3...

Yet more pencils to inks from the sketchbook.

Testing 2...

Following on from the last post here's some more pencil-inks testing.

Testing...

Inking is torture. I'm heavy handed with a brushpen and stiff and twitchy with a fine liner. So in an effort to combat my dissatisfaction I've been experimenting with scanning my pencils and then filtering them through Photoshop. These new character sketches were drawn in coloured lead then re-drawn in carbon with a mechanical pencil. The results are pleasing enough so I intend to tackle some dormant sketchbook pages in the near future.

Whatever happened to...?

Despite promising to "...post more tracks over the coming weeks..." it's been over 3 months since my last blogpost. The reason behind this inactivity has been the decision to go back to the drawing board with the Drunk Beatles project. I was brimming with the enthusiasm of posting two finished pieces over the Christmas holiday when I started drawing track two, but I was very unhappy with the results. It was just dull and lifeless and lacked that spark of spontaneity that had inhabited the original concept sketches. So since then I've gone back and redesigned the characters and overhauled the composition of the "tracks" and I'm relatively happy with the results. Below are just a sample of some of the 'new' concept sketches. Hopefully, I'll now be able to attack the finished artwork when my free time allows and post the results here with an improved regularity.

Drunk Beatles - Track One

Welcome 2013 and a happy new year to all BC&H readers. I'm kicking of the year with track numero uno from the Drunk Beatles.

It's been a long and winding road since I posted the first concept work back in May of 2012. I've since abandoned the decision to produce the series as vector artwork and have re-worked the composition of each track several times. After experimenting with various pens and paper stocks I'm finally happy with the look of my linework and have started to put together the finished artwork. I'll be posting more tracks over the coming weeks with the goal to produce a couple of mini-comics sometime in the summer.