Thursday, July 17, 2008

Pencils... sort of




After another long wait for a break in my schedule, and constant friendly reminders from Scott, it was pencil time.

About 10 years ago both Cully and I gradually switched over to using Col-erase blue pencils on pages. Sanford col-erase 20044 Blue to be exact. It's actually more a product of moving into the digital world. The color is almost a rich navy blue, but it erases to a bright non-photo blue, and this color is virtually invisible to a grayscale scan. The reflective quality of graphite worked well for shooting pages on a stat camera, but today's scanners are far more sensitive.

I took these pencils to a far more finished state than I normally do. This was so Scott could get a good look at where I wanted to go. When I'm tackling a convention sketch I like doing most of the drawing with ink. It keeps things spontaneous, and I like figuring it out as I go. These pieces were more akin to doing covers, and I really got the opportunity to chisel the graphics in stone.

If you're feeling good, print one of these out and take a shot at the inks.

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