Sketch Of The Week: Mr. Freeze Face

Usually, I work in a mostly digital cartoon style but sometimes I like to venture off into slightly unfamiliar realms. I'm a big fan of old movie posters and pulp illustrations and have wanted to try my hand at creating my own. I'm definitely not as skilled with a brush as I am with the pencil, so I've been experimenting with a mix of water color and colored pencil to create a similar look.

I use water color as my base color and then after it dries I tighten everything up and add details with colored pencil. I think I might be on to something here. I've still got some more experimentation to do though. I think I need to apply more detail with the water color before moving on to the pencils to avoid having too much of that pencil texture.

One issue I'm having with doing pieces completely non-digital is getting them properly scanned or photographed. My scanner seems to wash out a lot of the color and subtle detail. It might be time for me to invest in a better scanner.

Morning Sketch

While I was waiting for my slow computer to finish updating my virus checker I decided to do some sketches. I drew that sloppy looking dude on the right and decided that he looked a little like Harvey Bullock from Batman so I drew Batman as well. I like how they turned out. The lines have a lot of motion and life to them. That's something that I've been trying to improve in my work. I want the characters to seem like they are moving even when they are just standing there. I've found that it's important to move very quickly when drawing. The slower you go the stiffer your lines become. You have to have confidence, which is not an easy thing to have when you are your own worst critic. That's why I like to ink my comics in Photoshop. I can move really quickly and if I mess up I just undo the line until it looks right. I think it helps in maintaining those lively lines from the original pencils.