Category: Sketchbook

May 2024

June is almost over so it’s time to clear out the iPad and share some sketches from May.

Really thought Windows95man/Teemu Keisteri (Finland) and alyona alyona & Jerry Heil (Ukraine) would have scored better in the competition, great performances and personal favourites. Would be tempted to do some proper fan-art of these artists at some stage, especially Windows95man… Bambie Thug would also be a lot of fun to draw.

Initial SW sketches and inks, that Yoda is suspect

Usually don’t bother much with #maythefourth but thought it’d be interesting to draw some SW characters quickly from memory. Considering how much of the star wars I’ve watched over the years it surprised me how these turned out without ref.

Quite like this quick Vader sketch though

Alien Day 2024

Only a month late this year, not too bad I guess and lets face it, kinda customary at this point. Started doing #alienday in 2019 and my approach to these creeps changes each time… still haven’t quite figured out that tricky Geiger anatomy but love adding all that unnecessary detail.

Some bonus sketches messing with proportion and design, pretty happy with some of these.

Very quick colour rough using a marker, prob won’t spend any more time on this.

Initial pencil roughs scanned from my wee A5 sketchbook.

There ya go, another year, another #alienday, even came pretty close to finishing an actual page of comic art!

April 2024

Quick fanarts… scribbles, playing with tone

Slapped some quick tone on these scans too

March 2024

Inks over pencils posted earlier this month.. I mostly prefer the pencils

Nada

I drew a wee terrapin… I think I had some as a kid

Nothings

The obligatory self portrait… feeling great

Someday soon I’ll get sick of drawing skulls with high foreheads… but it is not this day

A wee inking test using posca markers (grey added in CSP) – leave a caption in the comments to win a no-prize

Some post-it ghouls from the sketchbook… oooohhhhh aaahhhh *cough* oooohhh

Prefer the rough pencils for this, oh well

Served this guy at work and had to sketch his sai tattoos, he now lives in my head as a fixer for the occult

I’ll eventually get round to my MarvelUKtober stuff again but here’s a Digitek tease

Pen to paper

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.

Nitty gritty

Been squeezing in some true grit texture supply brush tests from their free sampler. I’ve had this seriously generous collection of goodies resting in my inbox for a while, glad I finally imported ’em.

Heres some of my favs so far:

Rusty Nib
Crispy inker
Dry brush inker

Something just kind of clicked with the rusty nib brush especially, love the line variation and the rough paper feel. Might be my new favourite inker… just don’t tell real g pen.

Cha Cha Cha

Sketched the Finnish rapper and singer Käärijä in procreate after he melted the stage at the Eurovision semifinals, not a great likeness but I had fun.

I attempted #draweurovision but it’s pretty relentless, I only managed quick pencil sketches of a handful of artists, I’ve no idea how the brilliant Dan Berry manages to draw everyone and add watercolours every year.

A few more sketches of the awesome Käärijä.

April 2023

Finished a page that I started last year to test a gel pen brush in CSP, it’s not bad, just felt like penciling for a bit too.

A fun wee spread from my A5 sketchbook, I flatted it really quickly in CSP with the intention of trying out some colouring techniques sometime.