Category Archives: Sketch of the Day

I stumbled across a new website of photo reference for comics artists, so I picked this photo to give it a whirl. For me, this is an example of how photo reference can rob your illustration of life, making them feel too stiff and static. Part of the artistry of drawing super-hero or action comics is knowing what to exaggerate, what parts of the anatomy to enlarge or shrink or bend or twist into arrangements that are hyper-realistic, heightening the drama and impact of the scene. When you're tied too tightly to a photograph, you lose that ability.

The key is to use photo reference as a guide to how some specific bits look ("Oh, so THAT'S how the pinkie lies when holding a sword from that angle") and not tracing it wholesale.

I usually try to do these sketches very quickly and without a lot of refinement, in keeping with the idea of "sketch". But something about the original version bugged me, so I went in and changed it to what you see at the beginning of this post. After the jump, I'll put the original, (more) flawed version, see if you can detect what I changed, and why it is better or worse that I did so.

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I've already added this one to Companions-Standard, by the way. The source for the horse part can be found here, and I actually stole the wings from the crouching gryphon in the existing HM set.

Hands and background stolen from HM3.

I wanted to try something in the style of Ryan Ottley.

Another one that turned into an illustration rather than just a sketch.

No reference on this one, although I did steal the sword hilts from HM3 parts.

I keep calling this guy a gnome, but he's way too small for that if he's using a button as a shield and a needle as a sword. So he's like, um, a pixie gnome. Or something.

I did a screencast of this one as well, with the added "bonus" that I got my microphone and recorded audio with it, explaining what I'm doing as I go. I lost track of time a bit and didn't actually finish it completely in the ten minute limit, but I get fairly close.

Plus, this way people in the next room who can't see the screen can find me irritating as well. So that's nice.

Let me know if the audio's too low or high or inane or whatnot. There's a weird sound periodically that sounds like I'm going "TKK!" with my mouth, but it's actually the keyboard clacking when I toggle between various digital tools (zoom, the hand to move the screen, undo, etc.).

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These are all freehand, no reference. I started with the guy at the upper left. I kind of liked him and was on a roll, so I drew the next guy, with the metal cap. I liked him too, which is fairly unusual (two in a row, woot!) so, feeling greatly daring, I went for the female. After some tweaking, she was also good, so it was clearly time for a gorilla/chimp super-scientist to join the team.

What team? No clue. Maybe they're strangers who just happened to show up for their picture in the same outfit. Em-barr-assing!