Sketches with Watercolour

Apologies, folks. It has been a little while since my last update. Things have been busy, but in a “slow simmering” kinda way.

Buck-A-Store Perspective Sketch with watercolour by Von Allan

Buck-A-Store Perspective Sketch with thumbnail and printout by Von Allan

Another Quick Perspective Sketch

I posted about doing this a few months back, but I had some free time so I did another one recently. And it was so much fun that I thought I’d work it right up to colours, but this time doing so with watercolour!

My goal is always the same: just how fast can I rough out a perspective drawing? And especially: how loose can I keep it while having “enough” drawing to be able to ink it? It can be a bit tricky, but the goal is speed, relative accuracy, and fun. Never underestimate fun!

To avoid getting too fussy with details, I do these sketches with ink, using Zebra and Tombow brush pens as well as Paper Mate Flair Fineliners. If I make a mistake, I can fix it when I actually properly ink the piece, not at this stage. In other words, if mistakes are made, I live with ‘em. Who cares?

As many know, I generally ink digitally now, but that’s not always the case and I do “bounce around” between traditional inking and digital inking. For this piece, I went digital to speed things up. I avoid any “tight” pencils or anything like that; I just scan the sketch in, set it up in Manga Studio EX 4 (yup, I still use it!), and away I go to inking.

With this piece, I thought it would be fun to throw some colour in there, too.

I didn’t keep track of total time, but it wasn’t long, which is the whole point and goal. Zip, zip, zip!

Quick Perspective Sketch with Tombow and Zebra Brush Pens by Von Allan

Quick Perspective Sketch with digital inks by Von Allan

Quick Perspective Sketch with watercolour by Von Allan

Oh! If you’ve reached this far, don’t forget: I’m starting to put out free digital copies of my comics. Head on over to my “Pirate Von” section and take a peek! It’s at https://www.vonallan.com/p/pirate-von.html.

Quick Perspective Illustrations

I’ve been working on changing how I approach perspective drawings. The main issue I felt that I was having was that I wasn’t quick enough. For the most part I liked how I was handling perspective — especially when compared to where I was years ago — but to be able to produce comic book pages at a quick enough rate that was acceptable to me was always a bit of a challenge.

Given how difficult the past year has been, I decided to take some time to really think about how I approach perspective. I knew I wanted to get quicker, but I also wanted to start incorporating more screen tones into my work, mainly to create more depth. You can see all of this in the artwork below.

So what’s really changed? Well, initially I would do a loose thumbnail, then I’d fuss with the perspective — mainly through creating various perspective grids — before working on a tighter pencilled illustration. Only once I was happy with that would I then ink it. Well the result was fine, this was a very time-consuming process. Too time-consuming, really, and that was the crux of the problem.

My new approach is very different. I quickly lay out a perspective grid and then sketch using my trusty Tombow Fudenosuke Hard Tip brush pen. In other words, I’m skipping the pencil stage entirely and just going directly to ink. You can see that in the loose sketches below, though I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a bit hard to tell that these are using the brush pen. Why? That’s because I’ve lightened the pen’s value digitally, which gives it a more “pencily” feel than it actually has in person. But! You can see the actual process in the final image of this series, a “process photo” that shows how I’m doing this more clearly.

Is it working? In other words, it is quicker? Yup! I’m very happy to say that it is. And I kinda wish I hit on this process a few years back, when I first started WOLF’S HEAD. Live and learn, I suppose. And hey, maybe some artistic growth and development helps the whole thing? I think that’s fair to say. Still, it’s been a neat change up in my approach and a great deal of fun to do, too!

You’ll notice that Lauren from WOLF’S HEAD makes a few cameo appearances. I’ve also been changing up how I approach drawing tiny little background characters and I plopped some of those in the final inked versions, too. More on that development on another day.

Anyway! I hope you enjoy these process illustrations!