I’ve been getting back to reading Hayao Miyazaki’s book “Starting Point” and coincidentally with my work, I too have gone back to my starting point this past week. I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly talked about it here, but it’s pretty obvious from the rough sketches I post that I tend to think visually with a simple red pen and newsprint paper. There’s something about the color and texture of red ink that just allows me to sketch so freely and endlessly; maybe the red just isn’t as absolute as black or blue, and it just feels so malleable, whether in tangible or digital media. This time, however, the difference is that I was finally able to emulate the same look of the pen and paper onto a Cintiq and Photoshop (with my own custom brush and scans of actual smooth newsprint paper for texture).
Also, I realized I really needed to update my character and concept design portfolio with new work, so this Photoshop brush/paper experiment really paid off – (though coincidentally, on the day that I finished customizing these brushes Photoshop, was the day that I went to the local art store to buy more sketchbooks and markers, so go figure).
Of course, these pages are just a small filtered sample of what I did this past week; I wouldn’t wanna just let you eat all the cake before it’s done, now would I? These sketches won’t go into my actual portfolio, but it’s a good indication of what’s to come: I’m working on two ideas: one within an old dark fantasy world, the other in a sci-fi/steampunk future. Hopefully soon I’ll have some new portfolio pages with finished work so you can see the end result of my thought processes. Enjoy!
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