Patch(or, Ken is getting less awful with photoshop)

After my move down to NC, I made a conscious decision to take hard looks at where I was in a lot of areas. My art, in particular the recent round of comics pages, was front and center on this. I had been working with a writer(and new pal) Scott on a short sci-fi story prior to the move. And spreading the completed pages in front of me, I could honestly only come to one decision.

They sucked.

Too murky. Can't make out what's going on. Too overworked with charcoal and ink and oil bars.

So I decided, after talking with Scott(and #helpfulJerry), we decided that I'll restart the pages. But this time, using some digital tones...but wait, I'm getting off point here.

To get started, I wanted to do some "practice sketches" to get a handle on this approach. So fuck it, I'll draw Wolverine(I really liked Logan, despite the shitty use of my boys The Reavers).

So yeah...this "sketch" got a little out of hand...

But man, when I decided "I want to draw Patch", did I have a blast drawing this background. And a big part of that was HOW I drew it. I printed the sketch on 11x17 bristol in blue line, of course. But I also printed it up a second time, so I could tape it up by my drawing table and look at this like a location drawing. And using an ebony pencil allowed me to have a wide range of line weight(which is important when I get to what I will and will not be inking next)

At this point, I was pretty set on keeping the white shirt completely white to balance out the line work(and ultimately tone) in the background.

Something that I need to clearly keep in check is my heavy hand with ink. So I made another conscious decision to use only shapes to spot black, and not get too overworked with little bits and pieces all over. Again, this is helped by what I was able to do in the pencil stage.

And I inked linework on parts of Patch, to help pop him out a little more.

I'm liking how this is going so far.

So...yeah, this is what I ended up with...

And I ultimately really liked how this turned out. While it was super fucking tough to not go in and keep inking inking inking the pencils, I feel like the tones I'm fumbling around with are making this a better drawing. And I fucking love the pop of the white shirt.

Overall, I'm really excited to wrap up this short story with Scott(and then show everyone that makes unfortunate eye contact) with this kind of style.

Woooooo for Ken!