I am swamped with work, so naturally I am experiencing an overpowering urge to DRAW. It is always like that: when I have time, I have no inspiration, and when I don't have time, all I want to do is work on the comic. What can I do? Here and there, I try to squeeze a small drawing in. This sketch is one. I treated myself to a new pocket Moleskine for my birthday and did this as an opener. The colours are brighter in reality, but colour pencils don't scan particularly well :/.
The second version has some Photoshop tweaking and I added a texture ("Psychosomatic", courtesy of Princess_of_Darkness). I find that I like the combination of colour pencils with this particular texture. Maybe I can do something with that in the design of the Gawain website...
I don't know if it is at all obvious, but I am trying out for a slightly different style - a more stylised one. I have tried to draw a little more realistically after having been told that one glance at my drawings suggests that my story is targeted towards children. But this increased realism, combined with my inks, doesn't please me at all. The story I have in mind is more poetic and expressive and dreamy than realistic. Sharp inks and attempts at realism don't suit it. So now I'm looking for a simpler drawing style, pencils instead of inks, and light touches of colour (I'm thinking watercolour, possibly with some colour pencils). This will take some experiment - I need to find out whether I can get the sort of effect that I am looking for, and whether the idea is at all realistic. I will keep you posted :-).
This is Lady Ragnell, by the way. She is Gawain's first wife. You are not due to meet her in the story very soon, since our hero has some growing up to do first, but doing character concept sketches tends to help me figure out my stories, so here she is already.
