Let’s call this one Art Therapy.
I was working on another strip, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Couldn’t draw a thing. So I said to my self, “Self, let’s just put two of the original gang together and see what happens.”
And it worked like a charm. I drawed a buncha stuff, and even figured out how to get this inking brush I’ve had around for a while to work. So look for more art like in the old days in the days ahead.
But enough about me. Looks like Lyssa might make Eleanor’s party after all. That’s a good thing, since all sorts of fun happens when they’re all in the same room together.
Well, fun for some people, anyway.
Your inking is always so impressive, Charlie. I love when you share pictures of your pages in progress, and of course seeing the final product as well.
Art should be fun! So as long as you’re drawing what you have fun with, then I’m along for the ride. It’s nice to see happy friendship moments like these.
Thanks, mj! These moments are my favorite. We’ll get moving on a story sometime soon, but for now, let’s just hang out with these goofballs.
Inking brush thingy? Like one of those droopy Pigma Micron fiber-tip things? This looks way too precise to be drawn with one of those, but then again that may be my lack of ability to use the tool.
I’d love Charlie to give us a series of ‘tools, tips, and techniques’ with in-progress illustrations, either to fill in when there’s a dry spell, or as a separate series. It will probably involve a lot of patience, which is in even shorter supply than time around here.
I did use one of those brush/felt tip pens to draw most of The Adventures of Lyssa and the Pirates, vol. 3, Pops. I wish I could find that pen again. And I do have a Pentel brush pen that I use for some shading.Nope, this is a regular no. 1 Liner brush. It’s a little longer than I’m used to, and I’m way out of practice, so it’s not as clean as I’d like. But I’m getting there.
If you look closely you can see some differences. Lyssa in Panel 1 was inked with a steel pen. Panel 5 is 99% brushwork. There’s a sweet difference in line weight with the brush that I love. On the other hand, I have to give up some control and precision.
I think you’d be disappointed in a tutorial. Most of this stuff I just make up as I go along. It’s a very intuitive process, or maybe just my short attention span and terrible memory at work.
Though the idea of doing a strip in progress does sound fun! I’ll see what I can come up with in the near future.
One hint-mj and I may have a surprise for you all!
Ah. Thank you for pointing me to Panel 1 and Panel 5. It doesn’t show on this webpage, but I went back to the Tapas version (which shows up much larger, at least on my monitor) and looked at Lyssa’s plaid shirt in the two panels. The lines done with brush are much more tapered, which adds to the sense of depth — Lyssa’s elbow really pokes out of the picture plane because the plaid stripes are fattest where the elbow is closest to the viewer.
You’re way beyond my league. Your ad hoc approach works amazingly well. I couldn’t get a liner brush to do anything of the sort. I probably couldn’t use a steel nib, either. And my Rapidographs have been in a drawer, untouched, for a couple decades. I hope to retire in a couple years and get back to drawing and painting. Meanwhile, I have to get back to work now….
Steel nibs are pretty easy-the hard ones at least. I’d love to learn to use a softer, more flexible nib, one that gets more line variation (see Stan Drake’s work on The Heart of Juliet Jones, one of my favorite comics).
Oh, I bet with the right brush you could get some nice lines, Pops. I had a Windsor & Newton #1 that I cut down to work beautifully. I did all the Lyssa & The Pirates books, Utopia, Unlimited 1 & 2, and a bunch of Shanda the Panda stories before I wore the poor thing out. Haven’t found a brush to match it yet.
And I used to live and die by my rapidographs. Man, the Staedler Mars pens I went through…
I still have a Castel thick technical pen that I use for straight lines and borders-that’s what I did a lot of the first two panels with.
I keep getting Koh I Noor .000 pens because there’s nothing better for stippling. And then they stop working after a week, and no matter how much I clean them they’re worthless.
I get what you mean about work interfering with art. Next week’s strip is gonna be late, because I was just to tired and brain-dead to get on it. But it’ll get done. And, maybe I’ll post some of the step involved in putting together a GK strip if you want.
Oh, yes, please! I’d love to see how the process works! I’m more an art geek than an artist, I guess….
All right! I’ll see what I can come up with. Like I said, next week’s strip is way behind, so maybe I’ll just post some “work in progress” strips.
Awesome work in this page, with Lyssa’s attire and the library background. This is just amazing. Now let’s see what happens if Lyssa attends the party.
Thanks, man. Those first two panels took a long time, but it was worth it. I made them, then cut & pasted the characters in, so I have them as backgrounds to use again and again.