Sunday 10 October 2010

A small colour pencil sketch

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 :-).

4 comments:

the comics expert said...

been told by whoM?

ampersand said...

Dargaud, remember? I know that I don't really *need* to listen to anyone, but I did consider their comments and as I was looking for a new style for Gawain anyway, I tried to give increased realism a go. Only - well, it was neither here nor there. So I decided to go for something else.

Rembrand said...

That is complete and utter bullsh*t. Honestly, Dargaud (and much of that ilk) is just stuck in 1 classic way of thinking. With the enourmous variety of comics and -styles out there these days, there's an en enourmous grey area between 'for kids' or 'adult looking' as far as drawing styles are concerned.
Look at 'Family Man' for example, that's almost European in realism but then you have a main character who is a basically a caricature. Other examples: ‘Blankets’ = very stylised, beautiful brushwork, Guy Delisle = very cartoonish yet serious stuff in there as well. (check out ‘Pyongyang’).
Just remember, you're not making comics for old farts. Comics about legend and the Middle Ages don’t have to look like renaissance paintings anymore.
I quite like the artistic choices you’re making.

ampersand said...

To do the Dargaud editor justice, some of the things she said I absolutely couldn't do are things that some published Dargaud authors do anyway. But they are *really good* authors/artists. So yes, these traditional publishers do stick to tradition, but I think they are willing to give you some credit if you can prove that you know what you are doing. If you come to them with a bunch of scribbly layouts, like I did, I guess they give you the kind of advice that is likely to help you sell yourself as a first-timer. I can see the sense in that advice, so it always takes me time to remember what I actually want to make: something that won't sell at all, but that makes me feel happy :).

Thank you so much for your vote of confidence :D. It means a lot to me!