Filed under: amy & kay, comics, drawing, graphic novels, illustration, illustrations, my comics, writing | Tags: art, books, comics, illustration, sketch, writing
There’s a time in your early twenties when you start to realise that you’re not cool anymore.
You start to see all your friends getting real jobs, getting real relationships, moving into nice homes, and meanwhile, you’re still the same punk you’ve been since you were fourteen, the one who all the kids used to think was the coolest person in your local town, the one who everyone used looked up to, the one who always knew where to find a good time, but now you’re twenty-five and all of a sudden it seems like no-one cares anymore.
At least this is what it’s like for Amy and Kay. Life used to be so simple, but now it feels like everything’s slipping away. And when the painfully uncool Laura inserts herself into Amy’s life, it becomes painfully obvious that adulthood has arrived, and if Kay chooses to ignore it, who knows where she might end up…
I’ve been drawing this thing with a 4B pencil for a year or so now, fitting it in to spare days and watching it grow. As it nears completion, I thought I’d share a short scene from the second chapter. I’ve been gradually working on several graphic novels over the last few years. Call me scatterbrained, I can never seem to focus exclusively on one project. But Amy & Kay is getting close to completion at around two-hundred pages, and I can’t wait to share the complete story with everyone who’s ever wondered if they’re about to be left behind.
Filed under: amy & kay, comics, drawing, graphic novels, illustration, illustrations, my comics, writing | Tags: art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch
The great cartoonist Seth subtitled his brilliant Wimbledon Green with the words, “A story from the sketchbook of the cartoonist Seth.”
Wanting an excuse to make some fun comics just for himself, he decided to put aside a bit of time each morning to draw a little comic in his sketchbook. Without planning ahead, he drew what came most naturally to him, and gradually a story emerged, eventually ending up as the complete book.
I’m working on something with a similar approach: a graphic novel called Amy & Kay.
Every page of this comic is drawn without any under-drawing. It’s just me and a pencil, drawing it as I go along.
Working this way permits a lot of spontaneity to come out in the drawings. The standard way of drawing comics, and the way I’ve usually done it (as detailed in my last post), is to create a careful underdrawing and then ink over the top of it. This is a tried-and-true method that’s served people well for countless great comics, but the results can look a little overwrought, and lacking in the focus and emotional immediacy that a spontaneous drawing can give to a character’s expression and gesture.
When I noticed that a lot of my sketchbook drawings and doodles were stronger than my more careful illustrations, I knew I had to find a way to make my comics more like my sketches.
I’m quite deep into this book, and I’m starting to see the result: a story in pictures where the drawings may not be technically perfect, but where the immediacy of the drawing hangs together in a natural way and seems to give more life and character to the story than I’ve managed to acheive before.
More info on the book coming soon! Until then, here’s a few snapshots from the drawing board in the last few weeks.
Filed under: illustrations | Tags: comics, graphic novels, illustration, science, sketch
Big thank you to Washington DC’s Awesome Con for having me alongside Greg Neri to talk about our comic book, The Time Travelling Dino Detectives of Antarctica, releasing to coincide with the new big screen documentary, Dinosaurs of Antarctica, from Giant Screen Films.
We appeared via video along with a panel of scientists to talk about dinosaurs and comics, and also to show off some new drawings as answers to questions about life on the frozen continent (how do you take a shower in Antarctica?)
Attendees can take an epic journey back in time to a prehistoric world now lost to ice, with this sneak preview of the giant screen adventure, Dinosaurs of Antarctica. Meet the scientists, Libby Ives, Dr. Patricia Ryberg, Dr. Nathan Smith, G. Neri, and Corban Wilkin who explored the frozen continent’s glaciers on a quest to uncover its secret past, and learn how to draw a dinosaur with the award winning team behind the comic, “The Time Traveling Dinosaur Detectives of Antarctica.” (Panel details: “Dinosaurs of Antarctica” – 3:15PM – August 21 – Room 144AB)
https://geekinsider.com/awesome-cons-science-fair-brings-another-year-of-innovation-exploration-and-fun/
Huge thanks to Deborah Raksany from Giant Screen Films for organising this!
Filed under: drawing, drawing theory, illustration, sketchbook | Tags: art, books, drawing, illustration, life drawing, sketch
Whenever there’s an event featuring a graphic artist of any kind and they end up fielding questions from the public, there are certain questions that always get asked, and probably the one you hear the most is:
“What would be your advice for someone who wants to be an illustrator?”
This question is usually posed by a starry-eyed youngster, perhaps even a small child, just dying to know that one, closely-guarded secret that will cause them to become a successful graphic artist.
Of course there are no secrets. Or if there are, I don’t know them. But there is a specific answer most people give to this question, and it’s a very good answer. I was recently lucky enough to attend the Harry Potter Book Night to hear illustrators Jim Kay and Chris Riddell in a panel discussion about their work, and Riddell, inbetween his usual bouts of very fast and impressive live drawing fun, was asked this classic question, and gave the classic answer.
The answer to this question is always, “Keep a sketchbook.”
That’s it. Usually followed by the suggestion to keep it with you at all times and draw anything at all, as much as possible.
And if you want to become good at drawing and figure out how to world looks and how to capture as much as possible with lines on a page, then there really is no better advice. The more you draw, the easier it becomes. But as simple and effective as this advice is, it can be very difficult to follow.
A little while ago I went through an intense period of sketchbook drawing for a few months. I’d filled two thick books and was in to my third before it fizzled out again. This is normal for me. I go through heavy periods of sketching, and then I leave it for a while. Basically it’s because doing it properly is so time-consuming.
Doing one-minute doodles of people on the bus is fine, but if you want to get stuck in and seek out and draw big, full, unique scenes from life, you have to commit to sitting there for a good long time. I tend to spend around an hour on drawings like the ones you see here. So when I do it, I have to commit to it, and go out and spend entire days working on this stuff. It takes a lot of energy.
My point being, I suppose, that if you take the perennial advice of keeping a sketchbook (and we all should), don’t beat yourself up if you don’t finish off a thick book of fully-detailed, unique and exciting drawings every month. This stuff is hard, it takes time and patience, and the only way I’ve found to do it properly is to take a good, long look at the world in front of me and settle down into it as patiently and openly as possible.
Filed under: drawing, drawing theory, illustrations, sketchbook | Tags: art, drawing, illustration, life drawing, sketch
Can you learn new things unconsciously?
Skills like riding a bicycle aren’t really skills until you can perform them subconsciously. No-one can ride a bike well if they have to think consciously about the movement of each arm and each leg, and consciously keep balance and so on. You’re not really riding until you’re doing it without thinking about it.
I’ve been doing a lot of life drawing recently, and I’ve started to notice a distinct pattern in the quality of my drawing.
Here’s how it goes: sometimes I tell myself to buckle down and really concentrate on executing a careful, tightly-observed drawing, taking note of as much as possible, and relating as many areas to as many other areas as I can. What usually happens when I do this is that I do some interesting bits of drawing; some novel local observations, but I do not do a good drawing, which is to say, a good, whole drawing; the parts do not hang together into something harmonious.
Usually the drawings I produce when I focus very consciously in this way make me frustrated because they end up being ugly to look at and I can see how unsuccessful they are at capturing the person I’m drawing, so after a few of these perceived failures I tend to stop focusing and relax into drawing very quickly; more quickly than I can think; letting my hand take over from my brain; drawing subconsciously. Almost invariably when I do this, I end up producing quite nice, harmonious drawings and it gives me a lot of pleasure to do. Additionally, it takes little energy; indeed, I often end up invigorated after drawing this way; I feel full of energy, as though I could draw all night.
So what’s the problem? Just draw subconsciously, right? By delegating responsibility to my hand, my subconscious understanding of drawing takes over and makes things easy. But I started to think about this, and it occurred to me to ask: how did I gain that subconscious ability to draw? Because I didn’t always have it. Surely it must have been through the struggle of drawing consciously, and so paying attention to things very closely and actively and, through long, difficult work, committing the knowledge that I picked up consciously to my subconscious.
It makes me wonder: when I draw in this nice, very enjoyable, subconscious way, am I learning anything? Or do I only learn new things and improve my drawing by doing the difficult thing of being fully-aware and drawing consciously? And isn’t life-drawing, when you’re trying to learn rather than create your best, illustrative work, the time to do that?
Filed under: comic artists, comics, graphic novels | Tags: animation, art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch, writing
My graphic novel project with G. Neri has been in progress for a year now. The end may or may not be in sight, however.
I’m actually now redrawing a number of early pages. I started drawing the book at too-small a size, and I decided I wasn’t happy with it, and reformatted to a weird paper size I’m cutting myself (I’m envious of US paper sizes, since the standard formats we get here in the UK never feel quite right (or maybe I’m just that picky)). So I knew I needed to come back to those pages. Since I’ve had something of a deadline extension, I’m able now to go over some of this huge project and spend a bit more time on what’s be
en some truly tricky drawing.
In addition, I’ve been writing a ton of comics short stories, which has been a lot of fun.
Redraughting and drawing them up is a different matter, though. That’s the curse of comics: it’s all so time intensive, but I’d love to find a way to draw my comics quick n’ dirty in a way that works. At least I’m not an animator.
Currently obsessed with: Toulouse Lautrec’s sketches and drawings. He’s very much an illustrator’s fine-artist. Drawings have to have outlines or my puny mind can’t make sense of them.
Also: Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor. Which I’ve read about four times now and may be the most novel-like comic I’ve ever read. Nothing else I’ve seen by a single creator is as successful as this at giving you the scope and depth of a novel. I understand it divides opinion, mostly due to the kitschy nature of the eponymous sculptor-main-character’s art (according The Comics Journal, anyway), and I’d noted that, too, but in book on this scale, there’s bound to be criticisms of some elements. But the thing as a whole: wow, it’s a great comic.
And that’s Corban’s totally-late-to-the-party review.
Filed under: comics, graphic novels, sketchbook | Tags: art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch
One of the things that used to cause me no end of frustration when I would draw outside, from life, would be the necessity, sometimes, of drawing buildings. They’re always there, looming above us, often dominating the field of view. You can ignore them for a while, drawing a person here, a tree there, but if you want to depict any scenes from the modern world, buildings and architecture have to get in on your compositions.
It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve actually taken to drawing buildings: somehow having gained enough self-assurance that I can feel comfortable sitting for long periods of time putting together an office block line by line. When you start to embrace it, it becomes something meditative and fulfilling completely in its own right. These days, in fact, I tend to enjoy sketching urban landscapes more than people, who have the highly disagreeable habit of moving around.
Below: a few pages from a small sketchbook that survived a recent trip to the West Highlands with only moderate water damage.
Meanwhile: back to working on the sketches for my graphic novel collaboration with Greg Neri.
Filed under: illustrations, my comics, sketchbook | Tags: art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch, writing
You’d be hard-pressed to find any visual artist who would disagree that horses are hard to draw, but I’m working with Greg Neri on a comics project heavily involving horses. Like my short comic If Not Now then When?, we’re looking at working with a nice brown wash on ink lines, which seems to give it the right feeling.
Not going to say a whole lot about it at this point, but it should be a great project.
I have to share Kim Jung Gi’s portfolio with anyone who’s not familiar with him. Somehow I’ve only recently come across his unbelievably rich and detailed and living line-drawn panoramas. Do yourself a favour and spend some time looking at his interiors and street scenes, because I certainly am.
Below: just a little sketch of nothing in particular that was drawn digitally but looks sort of like pencil!
Just found a sketchbook drawing I did a while back of the shell shop called ‘Shell Shop’ that I mentioned in my last post. Drawn back when it was sunny. And below is a drawing from a few days ago of part of Folkestone harbour.
Corban Wilkin: Illustrator 