Concept Sketch 11-10-05

A friend and I are in the early brainstorming stages of developing a comic book story, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of monsters, ladies, and weird stuff for the next couple months. I love the brainstorming stage of any project: anything goes, don't say "no" to yourself, and the skys the limit. From this, you can whittle down, re-arange, or smooth out your ideas. Beginning with an open mind can help to keep the project fresh throughout, and allow for other possibilities somewhere down the line.

I've posted two versions of the same drawing in response to Greg and Dave's questions about how I do my sketches. I almost always start out with a blue pencil sketch, working very loosely and exploring shapes, lines of action, composition, etc. It's a visual brainstorm, just an idea or thought on paper. Like a writer jotting notes, or a musician humming or messing around with their instrument. After the blue sketch starts feeling like it's coming together, I go in with a pencil (2 pencils ideally, one sharpened for smaller areas and crisper lines, and one a bit blunter for bigger areas and a bit of side shading) and start bringing things together, always allowing for changes, and never working too long in one area. If I start noodling around too long in one area, I consciously make myself shift to another. This allows me to work on the picture as a whole, and discourages spending too much time focused on what could be un-important areas. After tightening things up I scan it into photoshop in grayscale mode, adjust levels, erase, and lasso tool delete things for a cleaner looking piece. So in other words... my original sketches can be quite messy :)