I’d quite forgotten that I’d placed an order for a custom 2mm lead holder from IJ Instruments until it arrived in the mail a while back. The pandemic seemed to have relented, lulling us into a false sense of security for a while. Either way- this came from Edinburgh in the midst of the death, […]
What do you do when you want to switch up your tools and get creative, but have already spent your yearly stationary budget on expensive fountain pens? You take a toothpick from the kitchen and dip it in drawing ink to sketch, that’s what! And then bleed the lines with water for a broke person’s […]
He would do his duty, of course, because what else could be done? Fight under the banners of a king he did not love, and had never even seen. Put steel to skin and draw blood, when he would rather put steel to paper and lay down ink. Commanded to take life when all he […]
New blog banner warrants a new post, surely? I changed it to a digital composition I’m working on for a fantasy battle illustration, and it feels very apt to the times I’m struggling through. It’s just a rough sketch on my iPad at the moment, with some photographs and screenshots thrown in, but I’ll be […]
Ill health, medications and side effects have taken off a good chunk of my life but I’ve been sketching every time I feel OK in between. These are a mix of studies and conceptual doodles- I haven’t had the chance to explore or develop any of them because of the feeling of wanting to throw […]
Today I developed yesterday’s more incomplete sketch. I started this sketch out with the modded Carbon pen but finished it with my trusty spoon nib dip pen and my bottle of thick, traditional Japanese Sumi ink, using the Tachikawa pen here and there. (I suspect the Tachikawa pen will be mentioned a lot on this […]
Sometimes the pen and ink fever just grips me and I end up staying away from pencils or digital tools for months at a time. This feels like one of those times. It’s not that I don’t love graphite or my Apple Pencil; it’s just that there’s something so special about the feeling of running […]
I’ve been running low on inspiration, so have decided to focus on a broader range of subjects and techniques to keep myself interested. Although I generally enjoy figure drawing, and whilst doing sessions from time to time is excellent practice, I find it a very uninspiring activity when there’s not much else going on in […]
Things have been getting a little more disciplined and routine on the drawing front now, thanks in large part due to the storyboarding mentorship that started earlier in the month. What I really like about this mentorship is that it’s a full year long, with modules spaced out over the twelve months. This means that […]
I usually don’t like messing with the default brushes in Clip Studio Paint because they’re already so good, but every so often you come across a limitation with one of the stock brushes, like a fixed angle, that make you wish it performed just a bit more like the tools you’re more accustomed to. I’ve […]
