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Comics 101
Art tips and techniques, reviews and interviews from my studio. Archived here and at World Famous Comics.

Comics 101 Archives

Comics 101 for 07/17/2003
Chewbacca Memorial Painting: Week Two - An artist feels the paint flowing through him.

This week I'm attending Comic Con International in San Diego, CA and later this month I'll be gearing up for Wizard World Chicago, IL August 8th-10th. I'm also busy with my new Moonstone Books comic book project currently so I'll be re-running an archived feature from Comics 101 for this month and early August.

If you are heading to either of these shows be sure to find me in Artist Alley for both events where I'll be signing and selling my original Star Wars artwork and drawing sketches for fans. I'll see you in San Diego and enjoy this look back at this previous Comics 101 feature!


Once the editor approves the drawing, it's now time to begin painting as I try to use my paintbrush as effectively as Vader wields his lightsaber. I start simply by developing contrast in the illustration. This is also an effective technique that I rely upon in comic book illustration to make my graphic designs as dynamic as possible. To create contrast in this painting, which also gives me a sense of lighting, I began rendering the darkest areas with black acrylic. It's often more sensible to build your painting up from a light to dark scale. Though I find it much more efficient in some cases to add highlights of color later in the darkest shadows by painting the darks very opaque (or thick) right away. Acrylic is a very forgiving medium and dries quickly allowing you to paint immediately (or whenever necessary) over any of your mistakes or previous color choices you might make. It's a flexible medium that you can use thin and transparent like watercolor or opaque and heavy like oils.

After painting in the darkest areas of my painting, I begin to use my black acrylics like water color and paint in washes of grey. I do this by thinning the black paint with lots of water. By painting in the various tones of grey, this begins to build up the value in the artwork that I'll soon be adding full color to (Example C).

Example C
Example C

Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.

The next step for me here is to block in areas of color but still keep my acrylic paint thin like watercolor in order to keep my line drawing visible. Quickly applying base color to the majority of the painting allows me to establish the piece as one entire illustration instead of focusing on one section and getting caught up in the details too soon. I'm not using full blown thick paints here which allows me to keep loose and move quickly at this stage. I also choose to keep the majority of my color neutral at this stage sticking to primarily brown acrylics like siennas and umbers (Example D).

Example D
Example D

I'll see you next week when we continue rendering and begin to paint with the airbrush.

-Joe

<< 07/10/2003 | 07/17/2003 | 07/24/2003 >>

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