I tried out a Tombow brush pen this week and it’s pretty great, nice line variation from thick to thin but just a little too chunky for the small stuff. I added some details and hatching with a carbon pen and some uni-pin fine-liners. After scanning and removing the blue line, the carbon pen lines are much clearer than the uni-pins. It’s also much easier to ink with the carbon pen, something akin to a dip pen without all the dipping.
Tried something a bit different for Captain Britain using the symmetry ruler in clip studio paint. In hindsight looking at my initial roughs (below) I probably would have had more fun with a heroic/action pose.
Day 09 of #marveluktober is the ever so shiny and somewhat homicidal Death Metal! Believe it or not I attempted a version of this on paper and spent about an hour on it. Needless to say it did not work out so I quickly sketched up something in clip studio paint before going a little OTT with the texture. Some of it works I think… I mean I like the thumb print brush stuff in the background.
Got a little lazy with this one towards the end and relied heavily on the thumb print brush and ink spatter to fill in the bulk of the figure. I’m not entirely sure the composition works but I’m happy with the Mignolaesque background and general horror vibe.
Always loved this character, had some fun with the shading using a thumb print brush and stippler, such an awesome effect.
Here’s some initial sketches trying to figure this guy out, I was planning on a landscape orientation to vary these a bit.
The pencils and ink close-up produced in Clip Studio Paint for Day 02:
I last tackled Deaths Head back in 2019 for #DrawDeathsHeadDay but I never really felt like I got him, it’s a difficult design to get right.
I approached it completely differently this time and spent a few hours sketching out some ideas earlier in the week, just messing with proportions and style. I was also planning to draw #MarvelUKtober traditionally and thought the sketches would be a good way to test different pens, paper and whiteout. I inked some of this with a Posca fine-liner and it’s a really rich beautiful black on the page, very satisfying!
Traditional inks are just too time intensive for me at the moment so the majority of the list will prob be produced digitally, here’s the final ‘rough to inks’ drawn in Clip Studio Paint for Day 01:
Patreon is great, I support fantastic creators and get awesome stuff in return, what’s not to like? (shhhh don’t mention the extortionate creator fees, payment processing fees, the annoying VAT thing or the estimated annual revenue of $50-$75 million).
I really hope patreon is worthwhile for the people I follow, seems like a lot of work to maintain a page on top of what is already a very busy freelance workload.
There is so much pressure for artists to work continuously these days (newsletters, social media, livestreams, online shops, the list goes on) and I often wonder if I’m just adding to that heavy burden by subbing. I can imagine that, particularly on patreon, creators feel obligated to provide ‘value for money’ spending time on posts at the expense of some other area of their life/work.
On a more positive note, I get a lot from my memberships – inspiration, tips, recommendations, exclusive peeks and goodies like the stuff below.
I spotted Ewan’s entry for the 2000AD art comp a few months back and immediately started following his work on patreon. Ewan works primarily in acrylic and his style is violent, frenetic and visceral, I love it! I’ve started dabbling with paint again for the first time in years as a result of seeing his process vids and I’ve also started sketching along with his hang and draw podcast.
Russell Mark Olson’s patreon page is immense. I recently started following and found I’d unlocked years of process posts and incredible artwork. One of my favourite things to do before bed now is read through his archive from the beginning, Russell’s writing is full of insightful observations and critical analysis.
The Gateway City Quarterly is a gorgeous 16 page newsprint format posted to members of the Sub-Editor tier four times a year. I’ve received two now and the latest edition has a fantastic bonus backup by Gavin Mitchell (above). If you’re not already on Russell’s patreon I can’t recommend it enough.
Gavin Mitchell has also been creating some nostalgic riso prints and offered first dibs to his patreon supporters. I nabbed a wee hero quest print and cheekily added a copy of his self published Spatchcock mystery “The final curtain” to my order. Gavin posted the entirety of final curtain on his patreon as he produced pages and I couldn’t resist buying a print copy, it’s fantastic!
