February's been a shit month! Cold bleak winter blues, nuisance sick for weeks, and with recent world events I've found myself picking back up that wonderful hobby of "doomscrolling." Of course given what so many others are going through right now I know that I'm very fortunate and my little problems and discomforts don't mean shit.
All it does mean is that in my little world of comics, chicken nuggets, and cats; my mood and productivity have both been total ass this month and I'm looking to turn the corner heading into March.
With that goal in mind I recently got the lead out... literally. (Well, maybe not entirely literally as these leads aren't made of actual lead I don't believe...)
For years I've done the vast majority of my artwork all digital, either on a Wacom Cintiq or iPad Pro in the Clip Studio Paint or Procreate programs. I've wanted to do some "traditional" work for a while now, partly for the fun of it and also for the practice as I do plan on doing some drawings on artist sketch cards and sketch comic covers which are both popular items for the comic art collecting and comic convention crowds. So as I sought to shake some February rust and malaise off I reached for some good ol' paper and lead.
This was my first time using "lead holders." These are sort of like a mechanical pencil but they hold a much thicker piece of lead that can be honed to an incredibly sharp and long lasting point. I felt like such a noob as I struggled to figure out the lead sharpener and finally had to watch a YouTube video on how to use it! But that's one of the good things about working with new materials. It gives you a brain workout and often insights and new perspectives that can inform your work with other mediums and methods as well.
I started simple with some studies. These are my copies of expressions drawn by the comic artist Stefano Caselli, so don't give me too much credit here... he deserves it all!
Not too shabby. They do look better to me now that they're scanned and shrunk down. (Comic artist's almost always draw larger than the final printed size because illustrations look so much better when you shrink them down!) I sure do miss the digital tools to easily transform and nudge the proportions and facial features around, but that's actually a good reason to add more traditional drawing back into my practice; to overcome that perfectionism and not feel like I always have to do that!
For single illustrations I can absolutely see myself doing much more traditional art in the future, however I don't think I'm willing to give up those digital tools when it comes time to create the very complex pages that make up the interiors of a comic book.
This past month when I've felt too sick and tired to draw I at least tried to keep up a pretty good reading and studying habit. I went back to basics and have been working through the books of Andrew Loomis who was an exceptional illustrator and draftsman in the early to mid 1900's.
So as another layer to these practice expressions I did my best to not just copy the lines, but actually "reconstruct" the drawings utilizing proper techniques that should be used when visualizing the head and figure. It shows up only faintly in the scan above, but I did my best to build these heads with a blueline underdrawing with the divided ball and plane method pictured below. That image comes from Loomis' 1939 book, "Fun With A Pencil."
So score one small victory for my productivity. Studying the work of another artist is a good way to help overcome some "art block" and inertia. If you can use that same time to also play around with some new materials and reinforce your understanding of some basic art concepts then you've kinda rolled three lessons into one for an extra win.
This week I aim to produce a few more practice sheets like this and then begin applying the lessons learned to some original character expression model sheets for my comic "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..."
Let's see how I do! I mean, March has gotta be better than February... right?
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