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Labor Dat Vacation Sketchstravaganza
September 6, 2005
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A few words of wisdom to you, the teeming masses: do not sketch in pen. Or if you do, do not expect a 100% success rate with sketches. Even 25% is unrealistic. When I sketch in pen (as I often do), I usually pull off that only 15% or so is shit I wouldn't mind people seeing, which is why you very rarely (well, not "rarely" in the last three weeks, but BEFORE that) see my sketches. That is because most times they are simply not good at all. But as you can also see (from the previous comic), I am an irresponsible fucker, and of course when this idea came to me - shortly after we arrived at the airport in Phoenix to fly back home - it behooved me to come up with not one, but FIVE workable sketches in order to satiate your comic-related hunger. I apologize most fervently that they are kind of crap: the earlier statements, see, were put there for context, so that you might do the mental math and estimate that with about a 15% success rate and less that an hour-and-a-half to produce five sketches, the level of quality would drop, oh, about n much, where n is the amount that you will hate me after you see them.
I am an artist (if you can even get away with calling me that - hell, let's call a rose a rose and say that I am rather a hack) who prefers time to do several drafts: pencil - pen - hand coloring, or pencil/pen - scanned copy - layered trace/improve - color. The bulk of my time on the comic is not spent monkeying around with pen on paper, but creating a workable sketch (likely with some needed improvements, such as scale or clothing details) that I then scan into Photoshop. I take the result, slap a layer over it, and trace away, in the happy-slappy digital medium where I can be freer with my mistakes and experimentation. The evolution of my characters has occurred in an analog format - their faces and noses and bodies changing shape as I sketched them on margins of notebooks - but their day-to-day appearances are mandated through this digital format we know so well. I rather like things like that. But like celebrities (which I know they are not) I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that there are a select few who don't mind a peek under the makeup, under the glamour, to see where they come from and what they're about. But then again, this is me, tarting up my excuses for sloppiness with rhetoric and maudlin speechifying. Ignore it: better stuff on Friday.
In the meantime? Must sleep and unpack. Tired as hell. But a wonderful trip. So great to see everyone, and I miss you guys already. Much love to my homies.
Peace Out and the So On,
Annie "Blue" C
his fiendish plots and plans
have been put to action
- Aquabats
"Tiger Rider Vs. The Time Sprinkler"
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