Posts Tagged ‘sketch’
10 items.
A longtime reader/friend asked me to do a sketch for him to pick up at Chromacon. He wanted the Marvel Comics character Valkyrie. Even though I read a few Marvel books, I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t know much about this character at all.
Seems like she is a female Thor or something? In any case, she is blonde, and likes swords. So I went ahead and drew this piece for him.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
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Over the holidays I drew Batman on my iPad, you know because I wanted to. It was just a fun thing to throw down quickly. I can’t even remember what the situation was that I decided to draw this. I wish I had a better story to share. Ha ha.
Anyway, I thought I would share it.
I had some extra down time this week. I decided to use it, by doing some extra drawing. Been playing a lot of games on Draw Something this week. It’s ridiculous, but fun. Hopefully it doesn’t become all consuming though. I have like seven games going, and it could get a little demanding. Ha ha!
Good practice aside, I had enough time to draw another piece in Sketchbook Pro for the iPad. I’m loving this app. It’s great. I can only imagine what results might be achievable on the newly announced third generation iPad with the Retina Display. Looks like you have to sacrifice some layers for the extra pixels, but that’s just a work flow thing you’d have to get used to. It’d probably be worth the trade off for the extra pixel density.
Anyway, I present to you Adam, and a pizza. Yep, I felt like Pizza when I started drawing it. The night I finished, I had Pizza for dinner. Thus the circle was complete.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
Still playing with Sketchbook Pro for the iPad. It’s a pretty amazing app. I mean the amount of versatility you get out of it, versus the cost of the app, talk about value! This app can do so much. It was certainly worth the investment. If you like to mess around with digital art, and you own an iPad, I can’t recommend it enough.
Get yourself a really good stylus to draw with though. I’m using the Cosmonaut, by Studio Neat. It’s definitely the best one I have tried. Some are a little touch and go, but this one is just a really good option, for writing or drawing. They’re affordable too.
Hey, two years ago today I started posting comics online! Nice.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
I started this sketch on the flight back from Christchurch on Sunday. I eventually finished it a couple of days ago on my lunch break at work. Kinda cool to be able to bust out a colour sketch without having to carry a series of markers around with you.
I’m still playing with the whole drawing on the iPad deal, but I am getting more comfortable with the Sketchbook Pro app. The main thing that gets me is the couple of steps it takes to switch your drawing tools out, or to change a color or something of that nature.
With a little more patience and practice though I’m confident that I’ll get used to this way of working. Who knows, maybe after I get used to the process, I’ll be able to make some comics on it? That’d be pretty neat. Digital drawing is pretty great.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to have briefly met Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content (QC) at a fan meet up he had arranged in Auckland. It was fortunate for me, and the other fans at the meet up, that Jeph and his wife had decided on New Zealand to spend their vacation.
If you haven’t heard of QC, then you are missing out! It’s a great comic. This was evidenced by the turnout in the middle of a park in the city centre on a very miserable rainy day. The meet up tweet was sent out the day before, which was gloriously sunny, however the summer here has been horrible this year, so that eventually turned into the rain we were expecting. About half an hour beforehand, Jeph sends out another tweet confirming the meet up is still on, and that we’d be taking shelter in the old band rotunda in the park.
I was hanging out with my brother that day. We arrived at the location of the meet up about 10 minutes before 3pm. There are already twenty or so people hanging out inside the band rotunda. The Rotunda has perimeter seating, and everyone is slowly starting to fill in. We are all there for the same reason, to meet someone who makes an awesome comic. This doesn’t make things less awkward though, as while we all share an interest in the comic, everyone is keeping to themselves. What you end up with is a bunch of strangers turning up, not talking to each other, and seating themselves inside a band rotunda, in the middle of a public park, on a wet Auckland afternoon.
Two homeless residents of the Rotunda, who had obviously claimed the spot as a quiet shelter area from the rain were starting to get weirded out by a bunch of folk quietly entering their dry space. One of them, on a foam mattress in the middle of the Rotunda starts to get a bit self aware, and eventually stores his mattress under one of the bench seats. It doesn’t take too long before his friend seats himself next to me to make small talk.
“Hey man, uhhh, what’s going on?” was the lead in question.
I tried explaining as best as I could why we were all there (with more people filling in as we were talking) and I also apologised for us all, intruding on their spot. Deciding that it might be best that they find another quiet area, the two homeless guys eventually take their leave.
Soon after Jeph and his wife Cristi arrive, and greet everybody. Jeph breaks the ice by breaking out his sketch pad, and drawing some sketches for people. At this stage there is about 50 people at the meet up. People eventually mingle and get talking before they have a chance to talk to Jeph himself. It was a nice relaxed atmosphere and fun.
Jeph himself was a really nice dude, he comfortably chatted with everyone, and drew a picture for them. I got a nice sketch of one of the newer characters of his comic – Padma. In return I gave him one of my comics to read. He was gracious enough to pose for photos if people wanted them too.
All in all, a really fun meet up. It was good of Jeph and Cristi to make time for everyone while on their own vacation time. Incredibly generous. Thanks so much. I believe another meet up is happening today in Sydney. If you’re a reader of the comic, I encourage you to go say hi.
Marc
Hey, 2012! Can you believe it?
Kinda cool to be starting a new year. It wouldn’t take too much to top last year on the good side of things. Let’s face it, last year was a rough one. I have high hopes for 2012 though, so as long as the world truly doesn’t end, I think we’re in for a good one!
Meanwhile here is a drawing I made on an iPad. It took a little while, as I was learning the drawing programme I was working in, but it was fun. Hopefully I can get some more sketches going soon.
Hope to get the comics going again, soon!
It’s been a while since I have documented one of my pages from start to finish. I though maybe everyone would like to see what happened with the latest page?
Generally what happens with the writing process is, I sit on the idea for a week. Thinking about the best way to progress the story. The aim for each page is to end on a scene that I think will either make you laugh or smile, or keep you intrigued enough to return for the next page. After the week has gone by, I generally have enough of an idea, that I draft out a rough blurb of whats going on. I keep a physical notebook to write my ideas, and story break downs in. The page itself, I’ll write a small description of each panel. That generally will let me know if I can translate what is in my head to a page that effectively communicates it.
Once that is done I throw down some thumbnail sketches. Sometimes I’ll do some varying layouts, sometimes I’ll get something that I think works right away. Often times I’ll work on something, and change it when it comes to the actual drawing. Nothing is really set in stone at this stage. Generally I use the thumbnails just to get an idea of page layout. I don’t tend to use them for the planning of the actual drawing. My thumbnail sketches are generally really small.
After that, I get straight into the page. I draw in my panel grid. Then get onto the sketching. Which is usually loose. After the sketch, I throw in the text, just to make sure I have enough room, and no images that are important are cut out of the scene.
After I’m happy that everything looks as though it is flowing, and a reader can understand it. I move into the actual drawing. Tighten things up. This part of the process takes the longest time of course. I like doing it, but it is time consuming. Especially with more panels, and the backgrounds I put in. I think that stuff makes it all worthwhile though.
Then I’m onto the home straight. I add in the colours, make sure there is a light source thing going on to keep the characters grounded in their scene. My colour palate generally is very bright and bold. I like punchy colours. I find this comic is pretty light in tone, so I try to communicate this with the colours. I try and make sure that the colours highlight the areas I want your eyes to see. Pushing characters that are important to the foreground. Objects that aren’t as important I’ll try and push back, with a warm versus cool colour mix.
Add it all together, and you get the final comic! Hooray! Hope you enjoyed this look at the process.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
Verily. I’m sure you tell all the ladies that, Thor.
Saturday was just miserable, it was raining and awful outside. Even though I knew the Zinefest was being held in a good under cover venue, at the back of my mind I was a little concerned that all the rain might force people to stay home instead coming down to see those of us who were exhibiting at the Auckland Zinefest.
Thankfully, I was quickly proven wrong. In fact it was the total opposite. People not only came out, but there was a lot of them!
I arrived with a bit of time to spare before the 11am begin time. My table buddy was thisisrabbit, and between us, we divided up the share of the table we needed for our wares. Not long after setup and even before the official start time we had people coming around all the tables having a look and striking up conversation.
Generally I find selling my own stuff a very weird experience. You have to be enthusiastic, but not pushy because people that bully sales, suck. Trying to get people interested in content they know nothing about is not an easy task. Thankfully, with an event like the Zinefest you tend to be with other creative people and selling to an audience of like-minded people. It makes everything a whole bunch easier.
Things got manic around lunchtime. Thisisrabbit had a workshop he had to host, and I was left in sole charge of the table for both of our wares. It wasn’t an issue when he left, I was happily sketching for a cool six year old who was asking me questions like “how do you draw so good?” – however it changed fast.
From there the day was busy. I spoke to a lot of very cool people. Young and old. Locals and some from abroad. The whole day was such a good experience. Everyone I spoke to was very interested, encouraging, and the vibe of the show felt very community driven. During the down times I was even interviewed for an Internet TV thing, and for Radio New Zealand. No idea when either of those might show up, but it was an interesting experience!
The day was just too much fun. If you came out and stopped by, thanks! Much love to the organisers for putting on a great show!
Finally, go check out this collaboration doodle over at thisisrabbit‘s Doodle a day Flickr. It was worked on by thisisrabbit, PodgyPanda and myself.
Thanks for reading!
Marc