Spendusa Damon Iusta Felix Mus Menander DLV

SPQR BLUES Chapter V

After the Volcano
  • ABOUT
  • DRAMATIS PERSONAE
  • CHAPTER I
  • CHAPTER II
  • CHAPTER III
  • CHAPTER IV
  • CHAPTER V
  • EXTRAS
  • CONTACT
  • DW
  • Français
  • Test arrrchive
  • FIBDA
Support SPQR Blues on Patreon!

Recent Posts

  • Have some out-of-control hair while you wait…
  • Almost yet another year
  • Head study: Domitia Longina
  • Head study: Domitian
  • Head/body study: Iphis

Recent Comments

  • klio on Chapter V: CI (with LXXXXVIIII, part 2, as a lead in)
  • klio on Chapter V: CI (with LXXXXVIIII, part 2, as a lead in)
  • susan mudgett on Chapter V: CI (with LXXXXVIIII, part 2, as a lead in)
  • FDChief on Chapter V: CI (with LXXXXVIIII, part 2, as a lead in)
  • klio on Chapter V: CI (with LXXXXVIIII, part 2, as a lead in)

Categories

  • blog
  • do art wrong
  • inspiration
  • sketch of the day
  • Uncategorized

Tags

10kd ancient palette blog colour digital ETA head studies hobonichi insomnia pen geekery recommendations sotd-201707 Sunday tempera watercolour work in progress
March 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Jul    

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Testing new tech

by klio on 9 September 2017 at 10:25 am
Posted In: blog, do art wrong, sketch of the day

I’ve heard wild and wonderful things about drawing comics on the new iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil (and an app called ProCreate–yikes). Maybe someday some new tech can join the art-supplies arsenal.

This test drawing is of a mishmash because I used about six different digital brushes/pens/pencils all on top of one another.

I can see doing pencils and inking for the comic digitally, but I’ll always be devoted to working with my actual ancient palette and its assorted exciting poisonous pigments.

In other news, any of you who supported the Kickstarter should have gotten both a backer survey and a download link by now; please let me know if you haven’t received both.

2 Comments

Volcano Day

by klio on 24 August 2017 at 9:04 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

It’s volcano day, the “official” pub date of the printed SPQR Blues chapters I-IV book. Happy end of the world (temporarily and only locally)!

I’ll try to put some art up today!

2 Comments

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #5

by klio on 10 July 2017 at 3:00 pm
Posted In: sketch of the day

After doodling a bee, I got it in my head I’d draw Wonder Woman in the leftover space, but somehow ended up turning her into Venus (the “on the battlefield with Felix” version), as you do. The greens and yellows are modern-style paints; the rest are from the ancient palette.

The sample paper–you can see its specs in the image–is Canson’s Moulin du Roy. I have a sketch pad with their Montval watercolour paper, and don’t like the way it handles water, and I think paints look dull on it. This is a higher-end paper, while Montval is meant to be student grade.

I like this Moulin du Roy paper a lot. It’s less textured than some cold press papers (fine grain); it feels smooth and easy to work on. Buckling/warping, when not taped down, is minimal. It was happy to let me do a light pencil sketch, erase it, do another, erase it, about 10 times. The inked line was done with a 005 (very fine) Micron pen, which went down okay, considering this is textured paper and not the best surface for a pen like that.

There’s something…I dunno…a little bit dirty about the surface, as if it had been left out to collect dust, but I’m not sure whether that’s literally true, whether it picked up dirt in my bag, or whether there are grey fibers or other particles in the paper itself. I didn’t notice it until I was peering at the art close up. I feel like the colours lose some of their vividness on this paper, but the fine-grain texture might be a fair trade off.

Update after holding it up to an east-facing window: Actually, colours look very vivid in the sort of direct bright sunlight one isn’t supposed to expose one’s paintings to.

Non-staining colours don’t lift off this paper with the breezy ease of the previous papers I’ve tested this month. Paints seem to dry more quickly, which is good if you’re impatient like me. My homemade earth-tone paints blend and layer easily on it. I have another sample sheet of the cold press, and I’d like to do more tests with it, and I’d like to try the heavier weight version. It makes me want to go out and do architectural paintings, of ruined temples and tumbled columns….

└ Tags: sotd-201707
1 Comment

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #4

by klio on 9 July 2017 at 3:06 pm
Posted In: sketch of the day

I let this dry a few days before going back to it so I could try layering paint. In the meantime I seem to have forgotten how I was doing the ponytail so that style could be continued for the rest of her hair. Lots of tweaking and changing is still in progress.

Still, every time I think I’ve pushed the paper too far with corrections and new layers, it puts up with me.

Iusta on  Saunders Waterford 300gsm Cold Press/Not

└ Tags: ancient palette, sotd-201707, watercolour
4 Comments

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #3

by klio on 5 July 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: sketch of the day

This is another paper made by St Cuthberts Mill, called Bockingford. It’s 140lb cold press, like the Millford paper, though it feels ever so slightly stiffer, and the texture is ever so slightly rougher. When doused with the same amount of water as I put on the Millford, it warped and didn’t dry back flat on its own like the Millford–but it flattened out after I forgot it in the scanner for a while. Layering on this paper is easier; I’ve been adding layer after layer on the skin tone, and not only didn’t accidentally scrub off the previous layers of paint (as with the Millford), but see no damage to the paper.

The manufacturer says: “traditionally made on a cylinder mould machine…surface is created using natural woollen felts that give it a distinctive random texture. Appreciated for its excellent colour lifting abilities. This is an extremely forgiving watercolour paper.”

└ Tags: sotd-201707
1 Comment
  • Page 4 of 15
  • « First
  • «
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • »
  • Last »

An illustrated science fiction novel by Alitha Martinez

Check out The Roman View, an alternate-history Roman blog, and its sequel Titans' Travels


©2016-2021 SPQR BLUES Chapter V | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑