Monday, October 5, 2009

Mata Mash-Up: From Line Art to Finished Piece

I finished an ink/graphite drawing last week after three pretty intense sessions. It was like solving a puzzle that kept producing new pieces as more progress was being made. Throughout the process, I took pictures of the drawing at various stages. The first stage is the line art, which consisted of enlarged and traced sketches I made while riding the 50 Mata bus.



From there, I started blocking in areas with ink wash. The ink is Walnut ink, which is REALLY good for transparent washes, and the tones are SOOOO rich! While I was at this point, it also seemed like a good idea to start doing a bit more pencil work, to get a little contrast going.




I took a short break from it to get a refreshed view, and the consensus was that there was too much open space that needed to be taken care of. Not to mention I had been really meticulous up to this point, so an element of spontaneity was needed. ENTER THE LEFTOVER COFFEE MUG (as seen in the far right of the next image)!

Much better...

From here, I just keep trucking along, carefully applying more washes, rendering in graphite, and adding elements as needed until I come to a stopping point.



Here are some details of the finished 15"x22" drawing.



Sunday, October 4, 2009

My 8-Hour Attempt at the 24 Hour Comic Challenge

I had no idea the challenge was even happening at MCA until a few hours prior, which is good- There's less temptation (or time for that matter) to preemptively plan out a comic. I couldn't stay for the entire thing because of work and other engagements, but here's what I have to show for my time.


This is the first page. I scanned it in color to show the non-photo blue pencilling done before the inking. I drew out and lettered all four pages before getting to the inks, which took about an hour per page.

Here are the finished pages, finished after four more red-eyed hours.