A selection of the sketches used to make some of the Drawtober images. I'm trying to loosen up my drawing. To that end, I'm erasing a lot less and trying not to go over lines too much, either. This leaves more to do in the inking stage but that retains some of the energy, I think. Messy because I'm drawing on both sides of the page. 

Managed to get a couple more Drawtober images done today as well as watching the movie needed for tomorrow's podcast. So, not a bad day, productivity-wise. Top is Rooster, bottom Terry. 

A new page in the Party Line comic. Didn't realize it was my turn so managed to crank this out this morning. The style I came up with, partially suggested by one of the others involved makes it easy to get these done. I am all for photo backgrounds in this case. Inking with pencil is fun, and I enjoy the watercolor brush for the first time ever. 

Drawtober 22. Still working on the mice as they'll be central to the plot in act 2. I think I'm getting there. Also, something I didn't consider doing at all before and did here almost by accident was to outline the graffiti. I didn't think it would work, but I think it really does. So, learning all the time. 

Drawtober only because I drew it in October. I need to redesign my mice because they need to fit the current style for the comic. It's always a joy having to do this. If I had just the one style, it wouldn't be a problem. My own fault. And it's not as if the style is consistent through the comic as it stands already. Well, I will do my best. 

Drawtober 20. Went the route of the caricature, perhaps a little far. Not being kind to me at all, but it was fun to draw. 

Drawtober 17, just a bit of goofiness with ol' Scum the coyote skater. Still allowing myself to play with the halftones. 

Drawtober 16, portrait of the artist as a lumpy potato. A bit more on the caricature side of things and I used the halftone because I saw some other trendy artist doing it and I figured, "Me, too!" What the hell. I can see the appeal of course but it is an affectation, a gimmick more than it is a real artistic choice, I think. You can apparently apply it with the brush which I haven't done yet. No matter what, drawing every day is a good thing.

Another quickie, just to draw something. I'm very much enjoying the watercolor brush style for this. I think there are some areas/moments that it works especially well, like the underside of his hand and in some of the folds of the hoodie. That being said, I'm not exactly reaching too far, subject-wise. But that's ok. I made something and that's important. 

Drawtober 14, a quick Silas sketch that feels sort of like an album cover. I am really learning to enjoy these new watercolor brushes. What's been fun is trying to keep them as big and as loose as possible, adding layers of smaller details as I go along, but never trying to be too careful. Should try something else besides the crow.

And done. A very imperfect photo because of glare and terrible lighting. That being said, this was fun to do and since all the planning was done ahead of time, not too hard to do. There was some learning to be done here; being less picky about the sketched lines and being more willing to improvise are the two biggest things I need to get over. It's big enough, about 20x30 or so. I think it has presence and that I managed to keep that intensity and slight sadness from the original photo. Wasn't sure there was going to be a big difference between a full sized print and paint, but of course there is. Digital is easier but is its own thing. I'm kind of torn; I like both. 

 Working on another experiment. I wondered what it would be like if I took one of my 'torn paper' style portraits and made it in actual paint. Up close, it falls apart as there's so little detail, one just ends up looking at the brushstrokes and mistakes. Take a few steps back and it does exactly what I want it to do. It's not finished; have to go back over some areas for another coat. I think I'll end up liking it.

I'm working on a painting, one that will actually get finished and so haven't been doing the Drawtober thing. I've also done a few drawtober sketches that I didn't like enough to post. But today, while waiting for paint to dry, I had time so did this. Something I have to remember for Act 2 of City Silent is to keep up with both movement and distortion as I think it really adds things to the images. Also wanted to try out Procreate's new halftone filter. I like it a lot but also think its something that could be overused very easily. 

One of these will look familiar. I'm part of a three-person collective web comic. These are my contribution. Since the first drawing was kind of perfect for what was supposed to come next, I just redid the word balloon and uploaded it. The second one I drew tonight, allowing a couple of my portraits to make little cameos. Trying to keep the style loose and am surprisingly enjoying the watercolor brushes in Procreate that I bought recently. 

Drawtober day 5. Sort of. Worked all day and had a podcast meeting last night so no drawing yesterday. So I managed an extra one for today to fill the space. Procreate over pencil. 

Drawtober day 6. Sometimes I save screenshots or images from the net of people I think I might want to draw later. This is one of those. I think he's from a Poirot mystery but I'm not sure. Regardless, I loved his look of disapproval and uniform. Glad I grabbed him as he was a good prompt for today. Procreate over pencil.

Drawtober day four. I generally don't use watercolor and up til now, haven't found a digital brush I like. Now I have. This one works pretty well, even as an eraser. A bit warped, with plenty of bed head, this was at least fun to do and I didn't struggle with it.

Drawtober 2. Today I did a pencil drawing I liked well enough but after three attempts at inking, I don't have one I liked. But at least I did draw something. 

 

Inktober. It's a thing and each year, I think about doing something for it and each year, I do less and less. This year, I did pull out brushes and ink but the attempt left me flat. I might have actually lost my touch for it, which is a shame. On the other hand, I can do so much more and get so much better results on the iPad, I don't know if I mind so much. The top image is a pencil drawing of young Greg Brady. I took a photo of it and inked it with a few new ink brushes I got from a nice, big, fat mega-pack. This guy starts off with tons of brushes and you get free updates for life (https://www.georgbrush.club). One of the updates was a whole folder of Japanese ink brushes. So I inked Greg a few times with different brushes then took on one of my recent Silas drawings with another. And they are all a lot better than what I did by hand today. So...ink's not dead, but I'm far more productive with this tool.