Monday, August 11, 2008

makers mark




well, as much as this leia commission was a struggle, im a little happier with the results and starting to know how to attack with markers. kinda. somewhat. more than the previous post anyways. one of the awesome artists i worked with (and learned a ton from) at upper deck, chris ortega (see link) used to always talk about his struggle with line vs my struggle with form. his natural mode is more on the painting side, and he'd stretch a bit to find the line in comics werk. according to him the bulk of a painting you dont have to decide on the specific contour, you can kind of blur shapes. and of course id always be marveling at his painted work precisely because mark making with lines feels natural, could never wrap my head around how he defined form with chunks of color. anyways, this recurring discussion was on my mind alot with this leia, because i didnt think i could get a likeness for her, or round out R2 without pulling off this trick. even though theres line, it wasnt enough. not real successful overall, but what i started to notice was how much better the line looked when the color bled out and around it, the fuzzier the line the more i liked it. so, i guess thats the first tool or trick or whatever ive come across in trying to figure out markers.
just moved to charlotte, nc, and got eaten alive by mosquitoes- other than that its nice. i missed living somewhere with a skyline. it means there have been a couple weeks where i couldnt draw, so the hand doodles are just warm ups. mid doodle there was a guy on npr talking about "texting", and he referred to it as "the revenge of e.e. cummings" which brought out a chuckle. look e.e. up if youre bored, hes one of the few poets that got through to me in high school, and prolly the reason im an aggressively lower-case typer. chris be don't text.
enough rambling, there's a Loose Ends page on the table right now......