Dr. Sun and The Plannettes

This is a drawing using India ink and a cheap little nib I happened to find by accident. It’s definitely worth the extra work. The lines seem sharper, and when I erased some of the pencil it didn’t smudge. Ink and nib it is!!! I’m too chicken to try marker on the original so I’ll be using some copies to add colours either with marker or by stealing my kids’ crayons. Dialogue bubble be damned (for now).

I think I might be getting faster but no way to know without timing myself. In any case, I’ll be taking this week off to work on a coloured version of the above, to finish up a story that’s due, to do a character sketch for Dr. Sun…and to figure out how to make a snail’s shell scab.

And THIS is a jpeg printout of the same drawing, coloured in using Prismacolor pencil crayons.

First, I’ll do a straight photocopy of the original next time. Doing it this way creates an annoying grey/blue tint to it. Second, that odd texture throughout comes from the paper I had underneath the copy. Again, lesson learned.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it has come to my attention I can’t colour worth a damn. I think I either didn’t try hard enough to make this work, I picked the wrong medium or…which I’m strongly leaning towards…I have a yet undiagnosed colouring disability. I like black and white so much that I always think a coloured version won’t be as good. Unfortunately for me the project I’m working on on the side needs colours, and to be happy/melancholy at that. The lovely person at Deserres, an art store near me (this isn’t a plug, it just happens to be on my kids’ stroller nap path) suggested watercolour pencils. Didn’t even know they existed. I will now try to get my hands on a few of those and try this drawing again, on a photocopy. I refuse to use the original as a guinea pig.

For the next one I’ll be using blue pencil, India ink and the nib from the original above, but hoping to fill up the whole page with background instead of concentrating on just the main objects.