Tag: Sketchbook

Absolutely

It’s been a fun exercise just sketching up some layouts of Absolute Batman for this challenge on insta. I won’t be entering but thought I’d post them here just to clear up some thinking space (the deadline is 27th Oct if you’re interested).

I would have probably went with option one or two but they just feel too similar to a few of the covers I’ve seen so far… besides, did you see that Harren variant at the weekend? Holy crap!!

I should exaggerate these proportions even more, this guy should be massive, a brick sh*thouse!

I’ve been sketching in procreate more lately and some of the brushes have a definite Kent Williams/George Pratt/Jason Shawn Alexander vibe.

Probably overdoing it with spatter and rendering on this Batman sketch, have to remind myself to simplify and think in form.

I watched Aliens a few times after not seeing it for a good few years. It was one of the few movies I brought with me to watch while visiting my in-laws for two weeks over the summer (along with Mad Max: Fury Road & Across the Spider-verse).

I’ve been thinking about doing some more Aliens fan-art but I haven’t drawn anything for it. These are some of the first attempts at something (sketched without reference). Hopefully it’ll develop into a final piece/cover/pin-up, I’m pretty sick of just squeezing in sketches lately.

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.

Reproductionist

I’ve been trying to reproduce the work I’ve been doing lately in clip studio paint on paper. The results have been varied but I feel like I’m getting closer with the second page here using a g-pen nib and Pentel aquash brush. Weirdly I much prefer drawing on copier paper for these as opposed to bristol board. The g-pen nib is really chewing up the Daler Rowney bristol board I’ve been using, getting all clumpy.

I got the idea to use the aquash brush recently from Franck Bonnet’s instagram, he dips it and uses it as a brush, genius!

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

Cara on

Post date 9th June 2024
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Felt like sketching a few more of these goofs and dusted off my Huion light pad earlier in the week. Amazingly it still works, I should really use it more often, this thing is great! Anyway, I had a few roughs left over from my alien day stuff and got to work dividing up some A4 bristol. Really looking forward to inking these traditionally over the next few days when I get a chance.

Like so many others this last week I also joined Cara:

I’ve been generally dissatisfied with my experience on social media for a while now, it’s increasingly more difficult to just see great art without the continual interruption of ads, meaningless video content, etc.

I’m lucky that I don’t depend on these platforms for any kind of income and I’m just on there to post the odd sketch and add a wee comment here and there. So far Cara is a good space just for that and it looks like more and more of my favourite artists are moving to the app.

In other news my web host is closing so I’m gonna have to think about what I do with this place. I enjoy having a web site if for no other reason than to have an online sketchbook/diary of sorts but the visitor numbers don’t really justify it’s existence.

If you’ve any recommendations for affordable shared WP hosting in the UK, let me know in the comments, it’d be real good to hear from ya!

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!