Thursday, November 4, 2010

Works in progress

I didnt want to post these until they were finished, but I guess I should prove that I've been doing something. First image is Katie Eberts in a dream I recently had. I started doodling it as a small joke, but it is becoming more and more serious. Jesus I mean I spent a whole weekend on it and then several evenings after that. And the whole time I'm like...what does this have to do with anything? I guess we'll see when it's done.


Next is something I started yesterday while watching Legion on Netflix watch instantly. That movie made me want to give up watching movies forever. What a piece of garbage. A while ago I bought a comic with the same name and thought maybe that this was the same deal, because that was also about the apocalypse. Oh my god, that comic- it was so good. Think of the most violent, gory thing you've ever seen and triple its effect. It was about a musician who played a certain song, an artist who made a certain color and...seriously, I just tried finding it online and I cant, which worries me, because my copy has disappeared. Anyway these 3 creative people make 3 things in their own respective media and it brings about the apocalypse. Which is the scariest apocalypse I've ever read. Towers made out of body parts, etc. Auuuughhh I wish I could find it, it was so great. Anyway, futuristic girl in her underpants, smoking a cigarette, pretty classsic...cigarettes are like the only props I can ever come up with, besides guns, and I only vaguely know what guns look like.


But this illustration, and others of its type that I have seen, have really got me thinking about digital inks again. I had recently become something of a brush purist...for some reason? Even though I would probably pick Darrow over Smith in the battle of Geofs/Jeffs. I can't really say why I got so into it. It's like I read Bone and got too obsessed, so when I had independent study with Joe I brought the whole damn book in and said "I want to do this!" Then of course Blankets is great...but both those comics are black and white, and I am so obsessed with color, and a lot of the time I just don't think color looks that great with brushed ink.

Plus Brush-inks make me so nervous sometimes I stop working for days and days at a time...because, you know, if I don't start working I can't possibly screw up. That is never my attitude towards digital media. I dive right in, sometimes stupidly, and became really engrossed right away. Also I find scanning ink really stressful. Also I may be getting my hands on a cintiq soon, thanks to a very special client. And that would change everything, wouldn't it? I dont know. I always feel like being extremely prolific when I sit in front of a cintiq. But I am worried that if I did get one I would never leave my apartment again.

Digital ink? Real ink? What do you think?

6 comments:

  1. Katie doesn't have a belly button. Didn't you know?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Honestly, you're going to hate me, I thought your brush inks were photoshop inks. And then you told me they were brush and I was floored.
    You know how I feel about digital ink. I use it for everything ever.
    My hand isn't steady enough to use paint or ink or anything involving a real life brush.
    Plus in this modern day and age, clients prefer an all-digital workflow. It's faster and cheaper.
    That's not saying that traditional art doesn't have it's place in the biz, because it does, the problem could be finding a willing client?
    Or maybe your traditional skills are just as fast as your digital skills and that point is moot.
    WHATEVER.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do both. Just think about what you want the final product to look like. At work, when I have to do inks for fast concept stuff for a client, I work in digital--it's fast, and lends itself to varied iteration. That's not how everyone does it, though. Penciled concepts are still standard.

    Natural media is, um, natural, you'll never get the same spontaneity and texture with anything else. But, if you want digi-clean inks, there's really no reason not to start there and save yourself some time and photoshop work.

    Personally I will never stop using brush. It's different, in its response and flexibility. It marks differently, with a greater breadth of marks to be made. Every time I use it, I discover something new in it. Plus, y'know, it's nice to have originals to show.

    But, I won't be giving up PS any time soon :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Carolyn, commenting here just to check in. Hopefully you're done, or almost done, with the enormous illustration you've been working on, which was looking great the other day. I'm getting anxious to talk to you about story ideas again, so let it be known that I'd like to do that in the next few days. Be thinking! But not stressing.

    So how is the big illustration going? Did you resolve the transparent-furniture issue?

    ReplyDelete