I'm curious to know, since I'm not a pro, how many people just "draw" what they want to appear vs. designing and refining. I've watched a lot of videos about Jack Kirby and he starts in the upper left hand corner and just draws to the bottom right. No layout - no sketches, etc...I tend to sketch, ponder, refine, ponder, final sketch and then ink - or something like that. Just wondering about others' process.This is kind of a sketch page for a character. The resulting character face being in the lower left - anyone else do this?
For years when I was a kid, I tried to "just draw" without any kind of sketched structure. (i.e. start with a circle and build a face off of it.) It wasn't until I started building off basic shapes that I really started to improve appreciably. Also it helps enormously to keep characters looking the same from panel to panel.
Thanks for your comments and great artwork, guys. I'm humbled. Have any of you written and illustrated your own book? I'm struggling to do so. Keep getting distracted with new ideas.
If I struggle coming up with an idea I mostly spend my time on just doodling ideas and random thoughts which usually brings out original characters and such I had never thought of at first just from happy accidents within the doodles. It's a fantastic way to let your imagination just soar and not be restricted to any exact form or concept also. Its almost like looking at tiles or clouds and seeing unique designs out of a mess. It's awesome for artist block too and once I have an idea then I'll go back in and refine it gathering reference if needed for anatomy and accuracy making it more readable to the audience.
I do character study sheets for principle characters, and during odd scraps of time I draw and redraw these characters so I can get consistent drawing them. A page I care about gets a one or two thumbnails then a full size blueline of the picture. Half the time am satisfied enough with my blue line that I ink it, scan it into Photoshop, and edit it there.
I am a huge Kirby fan! I think his ability to work from corner to corner comes from years of sketching and refining. He could probably see what he was about to draw in his imagination. I'm not there yet! A lot of sketching, erasing, refining. I think the majority of artists work that way.
Replies
For years when I was a kid, I tried to "just draw" without any kind of sketched structure. (i.e. start with a circle and build a face off of it.) It wasn't until I started building off basic shapes that I really started to improve appreciably. Also it helps enormously to keep characters looking the same from panel to panel.
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If I struggle coming up with an idea I mostly spend my time on just doodling ideas and random thoughts which usually brings out original characters and such I had never thought of at first just from happy accidents within the doodles. It's a fantastic way to let your imagination just soar and not be restricted to any exact form or concept also. Its almost like looking at tiles or clouds and seeing unique designs out of a mess. It's awesome for artist block too and once I have an idea then I'll go back in and refine it gathering reference if needed for anatomy and accuracy making it more readable to the audience.
I do character study sheets for principle characters, and during odd scraps of time I draw and redraw these characters so I can get consistent drawing them. A page I care about gets a one or two thumbnails then a full size blueline of the picture. Half the time am satisfied enough with my blue line that I ink it, scan it into Photoshop, and edit it there.
I am a huge Kirby fan! I think his ability to work from corner to corner comes from years of sketching and refining. He could probably see what he was about to draw in his imagination. I'm not there yet! A lot of sketching, erasing, refining. I think the majority of artists work that way.