New year, new tools

Hi friends!

We hope everyone had nice holidays! Josh is getting back into the swing of things and coming into the new year keen on trying different techniques and media because he likes to switch things up. I'll let him explain:

I usually draw black lines (the outline of characters, speech bubbles and dialogue, and some shading) with a wooden holder and old nibs I found at a garage sale a number of years ago. It makes nice clean lines, and I'm very comfortable with it–I hardly ever let dreaded BLOTS fall onto my work anymore! But it's not great for smooth, free-flowing linework. Also it's quite uncomfortable to use for hours on end.

So I'd really like to get better at using brushes to do linework! The advantage is that you can press much less hard than with the nib, and it's easy to vary the thickness of the lines, which is great! Although my grip looks more or less the same, my whole hand is much more relaxed using the brush. 

Last year I experienced wrist pain for the first time and realized how debilitating it could be if I wasn't smarter about my habits. I plan on doing visual art for as long as I can! Hopefully little things like this will help me get there.

In my comic last week I used the nibs for text, but brushes for everything else:

It feels a little sloppy to me, but comfort and good execution come with time!

I also feel an urge to get into making comics using pencil crayons this year. I've done a couple in the past like these:

And I sketched this barn owl earlier this week:

They're great! I don't know why I hadn't used pencil crayons in ages. I find them a really forgiving medium and very layer-able. So you can achieve a lot of bright colours with lots of depth if you put the time in. They can also give a wonderful softness to drawings. I'm excited to get into it and to share some different styles! 

- Josh