Once I got started drawing–after a lot of warmups–finishing the pencils and inking went quickly. The dialogue started fighting back and being stubborn, though.
I accidentally left a speaker ambiguous a couple of comics ago, by having an off-panel not-yet-seen speaker. This time I thought I’d try doing it deliberately.
Posted on Twitter today: I played with a sampler of QoR watercolours today (instead of getting the next comic done–but it was something I could do while thinking through the next complicated(!) steps in the plot).
QoR paints are made with a synthetic substitute for gum arabic, a binder traditionally used in watercolours and mostly sourced from one type of acacia tree in Sudan. I’ve heard that the synthetic binder is used in art preservation, but that disqualifies QoR paints from joining my ancient palette, even as a substitute for something poisonous 🙂 The paints needed some finessing to work nicely on the sketchbook paper. They wouldn’t be my first choice of paints, but some artists like them. I’ll keep playing with them until my tiny sampler runs out.
These are photos, not scans, so the colours and proportions are slightly different in each Iusta image.
(click ’em to see larger)
Today’s warmup features antique & new dip pens; J. Herbin’s archival black ink Encre Authentique (said to have been used by all the classiest ye olde French notaries); a variety of Rohrer & Klingner inks (the two iron-gall inks are not waterproof, the overenthusiastic burnt sienna is); and Copic markers, which I admit is a very weird combination of materials.
I grumped about the black ink not working with one of the nibs, but eventually got it going. The Copics sopped right through Stillman & Birn Alpha paper, but they blended reasonably nicely.
I tried out a friend’s set of Tombow pencils last week–and fell asleep before colouring.
There’s more grain on the Stillman & Birn Alpha paper than I like for dry pencil, so I don’t think adding colours would have worked out well anyway.
I’m not sure my screen is calibrated well enough for me to tell if I balanced the colours on this properly. I’d be interested to hear if it looks oversaturated on anyone else’s screen–let me know in the comments below.
This Iusta uses Kermes-insect red, Pozzuoli brown, Cyprus green earth, and New Gamboge + Cinnabar to stand in for arsenic orange. I considered making her dress Lapis Lazuli blue, but I like leaving it blank. 🙂
Warmup sketch with two reds–kermes (bugs) on the left, cinnabar hue (substitute for genuine mercury vermilion) on the right.
I’m always worried I’ll overshoot the mark and ruin a painting by overworking it, but I’m planning to do a second layer (glaze) on the cinnabar red and on the skin tones when this is fully dry.
With the second layer of red, the homemade fake cinnabar looks much more like real vermilion (even showing some of the same tendency not so much to granulate as to clump…that’s a technical term, for sure). The next batch I make, I’ll use more pigment.
I got the Stillman & Birn Alpha paper VERY wet and it held up with minimal buckling.
Recent Comments