More Rainmagic

Here’s the raw ink work on Rainmagic pages 2 and 3. I’m working a bit more on page 4 tonight.

I’m trying a couple of new things on these pages:

I’m trying to use more blacks. If you’ve seen Green Monk, you’ll know that it’s mostly linear. I want to create more shapes out of lights and darks. I’m finding I need to plan things out much more carefully in the penciling stage to get the lights and darks to balance out correctly.

I’m trying to figure out how to draw a dang forest. The most difficult stuff is the stuff in the mid-ground. It’s not close enough that I want to draw every little detail, but it’s not far away enough that I can just create a big mass and call it leaves.

I’m using a brush pen for all of this. The brush creates beautiful lines, but it requires more page turning to get the right angle. You also have to wait for it to dry, and oddly enough it puts more strain on my hand than using a micron. I think that because it does not have a rigid tip, I have to use my hand more for stability, and thus: hand-strain.

"I know Kung-Fu!"

That joke* is funny if you know the story.

*joke courtesy of Annie Dayton

Tags: Brush Pen, comics, forest, ink, rainmagic

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 8:59 pmand is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “More Rainmagic”

• Blake Loosli Says:
  April 27th, 2010 at 11:23 pm

  Very nice flow to the images.
• erik jagger Says:
  April 28th, 2010 at 2:04 pm

  really striking! what kind of brush pen do you use?
• Brandon Says:
  April 28th, 2010 at 2:59 pm

  I use a Pentel color brush, and a micron for the fine hatching on the face of the bearded figure.
• Joseph Hall Says:
  April 29th, 2010 at 7:16 am

  I _really_ like these. The characters and backgrounds reminds me of Jeff Smith vs Charles Vess, but the way you blend scenes together reminds me a lot of Dave Sim, back in the Church and State days. This one will be published like Green Monk, right?
• Brandon Says:
  April 29th, 2010 at 9:01 am

  Thanks Joseph, I appreciate the comparisons. This is actually closer to a full size comic than Green Monk.
• Pentel Color Pen Set, Set of 36 Assorted Colors (S360-36) Says:
  April 29th, 2010 at 8:25 pm

  [...] | More Rainmagic April 28, 2010 at 2:04 pm. really amazing! What kind of brush pen do you use? Brandon says: April 28th, 2010 at 2:59 pm. I use a Pentel brush color, and a micro-fine hatching in the face of the figure with a beard. … [...]

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