Someone Remind Me...

… that I am not a rock star. Anyone, please? Thank you.

Ugh. Now that that’s taken care of, let’s get into the real stuff. After a month or so of me trying to figure out how to make saleable merch for the 2012 MoCCA Fest, and failing mightily I must say, I’ve returned to basics: pen & ink. It’s what I do, whether I’m tremendously good at it or not, and I should just run with it for as long as I possibly can.

December was a less than productive month simply because I spent the better part of it worrying about how to make cool things and present myself at this indie comic/cartoon thing (MoCCA Fest)… which doesn’t actually happen until April. I figured that if I started early, I could knock out a lot of stuff long before I’d need it and be ready should anything unforeseeable occur. And it was wise that I did because the ‘unforeseeable’ was my lack of talent or interest or whatever in making useless crap to sell in the vain attempt to impress people that I’ve never met. I must have been on crack when I came up with that one. However, since I was smart enough to run into this problem months before it could literally become a problem, I have more than enough time to give up all my idiotic ideas and focus on what I actually do, day in day out. My drawing and writing are what I want people to see and respond to in the first place, right?

So, instead of making: woodcuts, watercolors, stencil posters, beer cozies knit from human hair or life-size butter sculptures of Katy Perry… wait, I still might try that last one… I’ve started making pen & ink drawings. I will admit, I was getting desperate. I was worried that I wouldn’t make anything cool and that even attending the MoCCA Fest was going to be an epic fail on my part simply because I don’t fit the standard definition of a comic or cartoon artist. But then I thought about it and remembered that I don’t fit the standard definition of a children’s book illustrator, so who cares? Again, it’s time to keep in mind that I’m not a rock star. Which is very cool, because that means unlimited freedom to bring whatever I want to the table. Well, in this specific case, half a table. I’ll show up with my books and drawings and if people like them, fantastic, if not, fantastic. I’m officially moving beyond my useless concerns on this topic.

The funny/annoying thing was that as soon as I decided that I was done trying to redefine my artistic persona to fit that particular comic-ish/cartoon-ish/indie-ish niche and sat down to ink the first image, all the stress vanished and all the excitement returned. And I mean instantly. That excitement, those first dabs of ink, opened the door to The Zone and everything clicked.

I figure this is a perfect opportunity to show you how things get done, most of the time. When I work with pen & ink, one of two things occurs, either I just dive right in with the ink and see where things go or I make a loose pencil sketch which then gets buried by ink. The former is usually what I do when I draw things for myself because it’s unforgiving, one mistake and show’s over. The latter is how I usually do my book illustrations. As much fun as it would be to wing it for the illustrations of a big project, I rather like having a pencil sketch to rely on simply because the number of hours required to finish a drawing almost guarantees that I will forget something that I really want to have in the image. Plus, it allows me to work faster with fewer mistakes.

Here you go, the first sketch for what I guess you’d call a small poster. The finished image will be 11 x 14 inches. Anyway, this won’t be the greatest drawing in the world but it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to fit the confines of the design and provide the basic proportions/gesture of the figure.



Then I make a rather vague pencil drawing on my inking paper. Again, when I draw for myself, I tend to take my pencil work a lot further, not so much in a photographic rendering sort of way since I find tonality rather boring, but I will battle for hours to find the perfect line to say what I need. I’m a sucker for a sensuous line. But since this thing is going to be covered in ink, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, the less I put down, the better. Even though graphite and ink are both lumped together as drawing materials, the difference between how the two really work or look is quite profound and I try very hard not to attempt the foolish mistake of bringing aspects of one medium to the other. Doing that only leads to disappointment. Less is far more in preliminary drawings.



Three hours of inking and I’m nearly done with this poor guy. I still need to add the text and the background/foreground design elements but that stuff goes a bit faster than all the detail work in the main figure. Drawing mud is easier than drawing a helmet.



As I’ve mentioned before, I usually work on more than one image at a time because I have to let the ink dry, so this is the other 11 x 14 inch poster currently under construction on my desk. Same deal, the first image is the rough pencil drawing, the second is the vague pencil sketch slowly succumbing to the inexorable march of Speedball India ink.




And that’s where I’m going to leave you this week because I need to go and finish this stuff. But I promise to show you the conclusion to this fascinating topic next week.

Oo! And I decided to go with crappy photos rather than scanning these images because it makes me feel like I’m still in touch with my DIY/grunge roots. I'll scan the finished drawings next week.