Continuing the theme

Tonight I once again participated in the Sequential Artists Workshop Free Friday Night Workshop. We walked though the development of a three-panel strip; after looking at some examples, we had about 24 minutes (8 minutes per panel) to complete our narrative. Here's mine, extending the story from the earlier entry.

9 x 12 sketch paper, a couple different pencils

Comparison is the thief

The other day I did this quick sketch (cropped a little for Instagram):

I kinda like it.

Yesterday, I decided to have a go at inking it with a brush. Here's what we got:

Aaaand... I dunno. There's some bits of it I like, but I'm really not happy with my heavy blacks. I think I need to dive more deeply into cross-hatching in a serious way, and focus on nib pens and not the brush.

I came, I SAW

Friday evening I attended the Sequential Artists Workshop Free Friday Night Workshop. It's sort of a short lesson-cum-jam session with different guest artist/instructor(s) each week, There's prompt, and the instructors walk through it, and everyone participates  making their own, and there's sharing at the end - sort of like a writing group, I guess.

The prompt was to illustrate a symbol of bad luck, a symbol of good luck, a personal good luck charm, and an item or method to curse someone else with bad luck. This exercise wasn't particularly sequential, but focused on drawing, so I tried some different approaches.

So, here we go:

For a symbol of bad luck, a ladder, as in don't walk under:

 

Pencil roughs and nib pen finish

 

 

For a symbol of good luck, Noah (I was tempted to do Russell Crowe) and that bird that came back to say there was land somewhere:

 

Pencil roughs, fine line marker, and brush pen

 

For a good luck charm, a waving Chinese cat statue, something I have actually owned:

Pencil roughs and felt-tip marker

And finally, for a curse, the malocchio fingers:

Fat pencil

I did them all on one sketch sheet so at least it looks like a comic if you squint:

All in all, not a bad event. I think I'll keep dropping in.

Moar stylin

So, I am not really obsessed with this scene from the movie Sideways, but I am interested in trying to cartoon the heart of the image. As Ivan Brunetti says in his book Cartooning (Philosophy and Practice) that when successful "[e]ven the most simplified and 'cartoony' drawings will have a compelling presence and solidity. The ultimate goal is to make your drawings "readable,' to communicate what you are trying to express."

I feel pretty confident about readability; it's that presence and solidity I want to keep working on. Hence, three more versions of "I'm not drinking any fucking Merlot."

 

1.3 HB mechanical pencil 

 

pencil roughs and felt-tip marker

 

pencil roughs and (cartridge) nib pen

Stylin

 So, yesterday I posted this as my daily art on the Instagram (see right sidebar):

 

 I drew it from a photo reference... and it's ehh.

 

I wanted to try something today, so I redrew the scene from memory, without looking at the photo or my prior rendering. Here's that:

I dunno... maybe a little better? Miles looks a little like Lenin, but otherwise a little more animated? Better anatomy? Or not?

Auugh.