“I could buy a LIGHTBOX!”

For the longest time I've been trying to come up with a process of creating well-rendered art that maintains the spontaneity and liveliness of my sketches (I'm still working on it). One morning, I was really grinding away, thinking about how I could do this, when I had the idea of buying a lightbox, an item I hadn't used since my high school art class. In my sleepy head I was thinking ... "That's it ... I know ... I'll buy a LIGHTBOX!" And immediately I started plotting how I would go to Utrecht and buy it, and plan my whole day around this important event. When I woke up I told my boyfriend about it. It seems really silly now to be so excited about a lightbox, but at the time, my boyfriend said I had the "crazy eyes."

Copic Marker and Colored Pencil Sketches

More Copic marker sketches, but with a layer of colored pencil on top! I had a lot of fun doing these guys. I'm considering using this kind of thing for my comic.

It feels like a fun process because I'm building the image three ways, making it stronger each time. In the ink drawings I was doing, it's hard to build a cohesive image because I have to think about how all the pieces will work together separately (like the ink linework, the ink shading, and the tones). With these drawings, I start with a rough blue sketch, going for good shapes. Then I block in the values with the warm gray Copic markers. Then I just lightly go over all of it was colored pencil. Because the tones tell most of the story, the color is just spruces it up. And the colored pencil glides right over the marker. Fun!

Copic Marker Sketches

I'm working on a comic book. I'm trying to figure out what process will work for me ... I'm looking for a good balance of speed and quality. While waiting for my computer to handle working on several 300 dpi 9" x 12" files, I started doodling using an erasable blue pencil and warm gray Copic markers. I liked the process, so I continued and did a few more. These are the better of the lot.

Something about the cool blue of the pencil and the warm gray values felt nice. Complete. More so than the labored black and white inked drawings I was working on.