Tag: Procreate

Gangsters v Monsters #2

The comics machine Matt Garvey kindly asked me to provide a variant cover (my first cover) for the latest issue of Gangsters v Monsters. Look at that preview art by the awesome Andrea Schiavone! So good!

After sketching a few of the characters and initial ideas on paper I worked up a quick cover layout guide in affinity designer and imported the logo files. I then exported the guides to clip studio paint as a draft layer and scanned in some of my loose sketches.

I switched between procreate and clip studio to create the thumbnails, for some reason thumbnailing was just easier in procreate.

I liked all four of these and couldn’t really decide on a favourite, they all would have been fun to draw, honestly.

Initial set of thumbnails with roughly spotted blacks

After receiving confirmation from Matt on the second thumbnail I started inking the mummy head first, followed by the werewolf before tackling the rest. I decided very quickly to limit the brush size to 0.4, 0.8 and 1.0 for consistency. In hindsight I prob went a little overboard with the texture on the mummy in contrast to the other characters.

Rough sketch to final inks in clip studio paint

I haven’t really been colouring much this last year so took a few hours to refamiliarise myself with some basic techniques before flatting the file, practicing on this art from the previous post.

Flatting WIP, lotsa layers, some would say too many

I had a lot of difficulty nailing down my colour palette and worked up some rough options after finishing the flats.

I coloured this over a few days so decided to create a reference page in clip studio to remind myself of the brushes and combinations used. It was very quick to put together and saved me a good bit of time in the end thankfully.

I had a blast on this and now that the project has surpassed its goal I’m really looking forward to seeing this in print come December.

Shout off in the comments if you’re getting a copy, I’d love to hear from ya!

notober

Nope, not doing it, you can’t make me, what’s that?… you’ve made a list of prompts with vague references and obscure characters appealing to my unquenchable nostalgia… ahhhhh, hmmmm… maybe I could… just one a week… or maybe seven at the weekends and post them together in a batch… collect em in a zine… release it on gumroad… that could be fun… I could make it woargghhhhhhhhhhh!!! Damn yooouuuu October!!!! You vile cursed month! Every fraggin year!

Anyway, now that I’ve cleared that up, please enjoy these random drawings.

My old Belfast comics meet-up pal Stephen Downey turned 40 recently and I quickly sketched up some fan art of his latest @outsidergames project Tax-Force. It’s heavily influenced by the X-Men animated series which is basically all you need to know, go wish-list it on your computer.

Wee goblin inspired by @boe_ink latest posts on instagram, goblins are good craic.

Had a go at the new bats and that axe, lotta fun and it got me excited to pick up the first issue this week. Since reading it though I think these henchmen dudes are supposed to be wearing ape skulls, oh well.

Look… it’s been a long week and an even longer weekend, it’s times like these that the Jarbats will emerge in the sketchbook… meesa not sorry.

Batman Day 2024

I was drawing this dumb Batman last night when I realised I’ve missed yet another momentous #batmanday… and no, I didn’t go to bed, Batman’s not the boss of me!

I actually sketched some bat stuff in August when I watched the latest caped crusader series.

Really like the character design choices and the overall German expressionist influence, Clayface in particular was straight outta Caligari (someone should make that t-shirt).

Some more sketchy stuff… I’ll eventually draw an epic aliens masterpiece.

Core skills

Been focusing on fundamentals so far this week… mainly late at night when I should be sleeping. Anyone else feel like quitting their day job to spend 3-6 months improving their anatomy skills?

July 2024

The search for a decent white out continues with this disaster of a drawing, look at those smudges, oh well, the rest of my alien sketches shouldn’t suck quite so hard now at least.

I tightened up my pencils a little bit from the initial drawing but prob should have spotted my blacks before inking. I made some adjustments to the final inks and removed some marks, etc. in clip studio paint (no guarantees I got em all).

Pissed off with my efforts on bristol board I retreated to my wee sketchbook for a bit of craic this last week, completing the following spreads over a few lunch breaks at work.

Really like the way the uni pin brush was behaving on the last two FleshBobs here.

It’s FleshBob!!!

Couldn’t resist mocking these up as stickers.

Scribbled some Death Fist in the sketchbook/procreate, he’s pretty neat too y’know.

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.

Batman Day 2022

A quick page for #BatmanDay sketched in Procreate. Someday I’ll draw a grumpy Jim Gordon fan comic and maybe include Bane and the Bat fella.

May 2020

I’m pretty pleased for the most part with my work from the last few weeks, I tried some new working methods and I gotta say I’m really enjoying inking at the moment.

Started off the month with a #MonsterMayhem art challenge prompt. I began inking without really figuring out the structure of the horns but the colouring was a lot of fun and I even added a little noise to the background for some texture.

Kermit turned 65! YAAAAAAAAY!!! The perfect opportunity to try out Matty B’s big wet set in procreate.

I LOVE this set! there’s sooo much variety and the included overlay layers are just amazing, a real quick and easy way to apply subtle textures.

I’ve also been using this inking brush set by Juan Albarran available now on gumroad for clip studio paint, favourites so far include the main brush, dry brush and rake brush.