Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Work In Progress is a blog that shows comics pages coming to life from initial sketches to finished piece, with various stages in between. The images are all in Flash, and we see them blend seamlessly into each other, which makes for an interesting effect. The blog is in Spanish, but you certainly don’t need to be able to read any of the words to appreciate the work here.

Shown here, the work of Enrique Fernández.

Cartoonist Charlie Gavin created a step-by-step look at how he uses Manga Studio (along with Photoshop) to create his webcomic, Silver Age.

I quite like Manga Studio. It’s a product quite unlike any other, offering cartoonists and comic artists a tool designed specifically for creating comics. It’s hindered a little by an unpolished user interface, imperfect screen rendering at certain zoom levels, and a product name that might scare away customers who think it’s only for Japanese-style manga.

Plus, Smith Micro isn’t quite sure how to market it. Confusingly, there are two versions of the software, EX and Debut. Neither version’s page links to the other one’s, and the differences between the $50 and $300 pricetags aren’t evident.

See our previous post about how Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons used it to create an illustration of Rorschach.

Gallery 1988 has shared a glimpse into their upcoming exhibition, Under The Influence: Masters of the Universe. This Battlecat painting by Robert Burden is, in their own words, absolutely epic. Clearly Robert haaaas the powerrrrrr.

You can’t quite grasp the size of the piece until you see the artist standing beside it.

They’ve also shared this video of the painting in process:

A quick Googling for Robert Burden also led me to this process video of Robert painting a similarly epic Voltron piece:

Edmonton illustrator Raymond Biesinger (previously) has crafted a new blog called The Daily Sentry which aims to illuminate his illustration work’s “economics, reasoning, context and process”.

And even though, in his first entry, he takes a stab at illustration link-blogs — certainly he means some other illustration link-blog? — who are we to ignore such a promising link to blog? Raymond’s work is undeniably thoughtful, restrained, and beautiful, and I look forward to reading about how his illustrations come to be.

The Ariel Contrivance Workshop has posted an interview with Pixar animator and Molly and the Bear artist Bob Scott: Bob Scott on Comic Strips. I particularly enjoyed seeing Bob’s process in creating his strip.

Children’s illustrator John Manders visits schools to talk about what he does for a living, and has created a blog to continue the discussion online. His blog is full of sketches, colour studies, and in-progress paintings for those that like to see the behind-the-scenes aspects of an illustrator’s workflow.

I have certainly used InDesign to package finished comics projects, but since it’s primarily a page layout tool, I have never seen it used for any sort of drawing. In this video Gareth Hinds shows how he uses InDesign’s vector pencil tool to do the rough sketching and layouts for his comic book adaptation of The Odyssey.

This is the first in a series of videos for which he plans to share the other steps in his comic-making process.

Illustrator Jonathan Burton continues to update his process blog, The Unreachable Itch and it remains an educational look into one artist’s workflow. I particularly enjoyed the recent posts about his various illustrations for the PD James novel Cover Her Face.

The Hallowed Seam: PR3 – the new beautifully-bound James Jean sketchbook – drops tomorrow (July 29).

I’ve seen an advance PDF of the book and it’s gorgeous. More of the same flowing ballpoint pen sketches that we saw in the previous two volumes but this book has a lot more paints, colour and model-sketches as in the images below.

Update: Note from the publisher: The shipping date on Amazon was incorrect, “the book actually won’t be out until Sept/Oct 2009. It should be getting placed on the ship right about now.”

Also of interest:
Preview of Kindling: 12 Removable Prints by James Jean

In a recent blog post, illustrator Nate Williams shares his method for generating ideas for editorial illustrations.

The idea behind this methodology is similar to writing a song. There are only a few musical notes, but by rearranging their order, length and speed you can create an infinite amount of songs.

The Brothers McLeod have been blogging the process and making of their latest short film. Check out all the work in progress posts on their blog.

Previously:
Dogg
Animated coffee stirrers
Pedro and Frankensheep
Spamland

Thunder Chunky offers up a step-by-step look at the creation of a giclée print by Ben the Illustrator from initial sketch to final printed product.

Link: Ben the Illustrator’s Giclée Print.