Sketchbook Flashback – Spider-Man

Hey guys.  While I want to keep this mostly about my more recent and ongoing peices of art (mostly because they are better) I thought I would use some older pics from when I started drawing again about a year ago or so.  These aren’t great and show a lot of work needs to be done.  But they give you an idea of where I started and how much I have grown.

When I first bought my sketchbook I thought I would start easy, with a character I am very familiar with.  Yes that’s right, Spider-Man again. There is nothing really to brag about here, its just a quick sketch that really tells me how much harder I need to work at this.  The detail is sloppy, the body proportions are all over the place. And its small. Really small.  Its a far cry from the gorgeous splash pages I envisioned in my head.

Groan…

Digital Paint – Kitty Pryde

So I thought I would share another painting I did a while a back.  This was my second attempt.  Again this is a drawing I do not own, it was merely an experiment to see if I could indeed paint convincing comic book pages or if my first attempt was just a fluke. Turns out it wasn’t a fluke, that I showed some promise, though I know I am far from professional.  This time I went with another character I like but an artist I wasn’t familiar with. This was my attempt at painting a Kitty Pryde.

Again this was one I did with the burn and dodge tool.  Part way through this one I thought about switching to using colour variations rather than burn and dodge, but went ahead and finished that one, saving further experimentation in another technique for a different picture. This is another one that I need to go back and work on because I was a little intimidated by the hair.  At some point you may see an update about this one so don’t be surprised if this comes back again.

Digital Paint – Spider-Man (Evolution)

Hey guys,

I couldn’t wait to start showing off the new art, so despite having just set up the blog I thought I would post any ways (happy Vic? ).

Wanted to share with you what was my first attempt at digital painting. This grew out of a curiosity as to whether or not I could do a digital paint job of someone else’s work (since none of mine were inked at the time, nor worthy of painting). So I sought out a familiar piece.

This is a Spider-Man panel from years ago by a favorite of mine Mark Bagely (former artist of Ultimate Spider-Man). I chose it because, first its a pretty well inked image that demonstrates the character and movement well. Second its a character and artist I am familiar with. So I started to experiment. The first step was just laying in the base colours with the line art remaining as the top layer in Photoshop. I also added a gradient to the background just to separate the character and give the whole picture a little life…probably not what’s usually done for backgrounds, but I am very much an amateur.

Encouraged by these results I continue to experiment further adding shading and highlight to the character using the techniques described to me in a You Tube video. I followed the instructions using the burn and dodge tools to give dimension and detail to the character. I’ve since learned other techniques that are better suited to painting a variety of images as the burn and dodge tool don’t always get the desired results. But for this first attempt I think I did pretty well with just burning and dodging.

Though its certainly not perfect I thought it was a great attempt and kept working adding some colour to the background.  This proved more tedius then I would like and though I left it as is, I am tempted to go back and rework the background.  Of course I kept all the source files so it shouldn’t be a problem to improve the background.  But for the time being this is the final version and I am pretty pleased with it.

So that’s it my first experiment. Of course this has encouraged me to keep trying and keep learning.  From here I’ve done a couple different images and continue to experiment.  I am also in the midst of learning inking to cover all the basis. Now I won’t be featuring the step by step breakdown of the evolution of an image with all the stuff I paint. But since this was an interesting experiment I thought I would demonstrate the picture’s evolution.

Hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for more.

Welcome to the Sketchbook!

Hey guys, welcome to the Sketchbook. This is, quite simply, my experiment. I have been a life long comic book fan with an ever growing appreciation for comic book art. So over the course of the last year I have been experimenting with my own ability to draw and for the last month I have been expanding to other areas such as digitally inking and colouring. This will be a diary of my development, charting my growth as an amateur (but enthusiastic) artist that I want to share with the world. So join me on my journey…

Oh and feedback is also appreciated.

Disclaimer: The majority of work I do with this blog will be working with someone else’s work to some degree, whether I am painting their inked work, or drawing their characters.  I hope to grow as an artist and develop my own material, but like most artist I am starting out mimicking the creations of the artists I respect and admire.  I claim no ownership of these works (unless otherwise stated) and want to ensure that you know this is solely for creative and educational purposes.