My first attempt at a four panel gag strip. I have always procrastinated about doing some sequential art so I thought that would make a good theme.
Sometimes artists can get a little too precious about the tools they use. Having said that I must add that this was drawn on detail paper then hand lettered and inked with a PITT brush pen.
Monthly Archive for March, 2010
A few drawings based on The Doll Squad. A movie which inspired the series ‘Charlie’s Angels’. They’re Beautiful, They’re Dangerous, They’re Deadly!
With these sketches I tried to avoid hard outlines. Derwent pencils on cartridge paper, A4 size.
Album cover image sourced from The Retro Spector.
The movie Cadillac Records (2008) chronicles the rise of Chess Records in 1950’s Chicago. R&B artist Beyoncé Knowles plays the blues singer Etta James. These sketches are inspired by both Beyoncé and the even more extraordinary looking (and sounding) Etta.
I am pretty happy to have illustrated this month’s story in Australian Woman’s Weekly (March 2010).
The story entitled Ambush is about a wife who finds out that her husband and faithful dog (Ambush) have been involved in a road accident. The husband is an old hippie type who loves riding around the neighborhood on his Harley with Ambush in a sidecar.
I began my rough sketches with trying out various compositions but the side on view seemed to be the strongest. The subject seemed to lend itself to a very definite foreground (dog in sidecar), mid-ground (man on bike) and background (stormy sky and lake) arrangement.
These three levels would also be emphasised by colour, with brighter colours to the fore and cooler colours making the background recede.
When i came to do my final pencil drawing i also treated each element (Man on bike, Dog in sidecar etc) separately and assembled them on layers in Photoshop. This gave total control with placement and i could easily change the sky.
Below you see the various stages.
Artwork assembled in Photoshop ready to be coloured (above).
Final pencil drawing on watercolour paper (above).
Colour rough that was approved by the client (above).
Rough sketches (above).
Over the past month I have completed a few illustrations for Copeland Publishing’s parenting magazines (Melbourne Child, Sydney Child). This is a one of two illustrations for an article entitled ‘The Tyranny of Distance’ for the April 2010 issue.
In it a mum writes about how her three year old daughter connects with her young cousins who visit briefly from Italy.
Many of the magazine’s illustrations are in a cartoon style but for this one the editor Sean wanted to go for a more naturalistic, concept-based approach.
I decided to focus on the girl and show her in a reflective mood maybe thinking about her cousins who had just left on their long trip back home
I have roughly outlined my process below from thumbnails to final art.
The completed illustration.
My final pencil drawing that i scanned in at 600 ppi and then reduced to 300 ppi. I cleaned it up a bit in Photoshop and it was all ready to colour.
My final rough sketches. I was getting closer to the want I wanted with the one on the right. A sort of combination of my reference photos.
More developed roughs. A bit too close to my photo reference (left) so I went for a more impressionistic look (right).
Early sketches working from my reference.
This photo of a girl with her reflection was my main inspiration. Love the wistful contemplative expression. I wanted to get a similar feeling in the drawing. Photo reference from Flickr.
Thumbnails showing various compositions. Originally thought of including the Mother.
Sorry for the delay in updating but I was plagued with some major computer problems. Anyway it was finally resolved this week by having a new hard drive installed in my iMac. Everything working well now.
