Me and my good pal Kyle Starks worked up a Harley Quinn story, in comic shops next week! Got copies in the mail today and I think they look nice!
(Harley Quinn: Black + White + Redder #4)
Hello, friends! I’m going to be giving a talk at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus/CXC tomorrow (Thursday) at 3pm, and I’ll be tabling at their big event at the Columbus Public Library on Saturday and Sunday.
If you’re anywhere near the area, it’s worth coming out to - it’s free! And it’s chock full of some incredible folks. There’s an exhibit of the work of and a spotlight panel for Raina Telgemeier, whose books have been read by pretty much every middle school you’ve known in the last ten years; the three best Dreamworks Animation Movies (Prince of Egypt, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon) will be screening with their directors on hand… it’s quite an opportunity! Hope to see y'all there!
Starting to pencil the first of two DRACULA figure sets for Patreon. Here’s Dr. Van Helsing and the eponymous Count himself, in his youthened London appearance. I’m going off the book descriptions as much as I can:
Van Helsing: “a man of medium height, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart and are quick and tender or stern with the man’s moods.”
Dracula: often mentioned as quite tall, and “His face was a strong–a very strong–aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin.”
Digital pencils for a Treebeard figure, with a little King Arthur for scale
Us and Canadian pals:
If you’re looking for a fun little horror or fantasy element to incorporate into models or gaming terrain, dollar tree has gotten in bags of like 15 of these little styrofoam skulls that they carry for Halloween; they make good sculptural components and run you less than 10¢ each
THE GREATCOATS by Sebastien de Castell
I drew these up as one of the (mostly literary) paper figures I do each month for Patreon.
Despite always being drawn to the trappings of fantasy, there are precious few fantasy books (or movies, etc) that have resonated with me. One very notable exception is the Greatcoats series, four novels that follow a trio of comrades from an effectively-dissolved band of dueling magistrates, who, in their heyday, had been charged with enforcing unpopular verdicts against politically powerful folks who had, until that point, been untouchable by the rule of law.
It’s kind of a thrust-the-Musketeers-into-a-medieval-setting thing, and there are swordfights and sucked-into-political-intrigues-even-though-you’re-ill-suited-towards-them a’plenty, for folks who like that sort of thing, and I very much do.
From the first read (I’ve now read them all thrice, along with a collection of short stories), these have become some of my very favorite books, and I could not recommend them more highly. They can, at times, be a hard read; the world in which the Greatcoats live is an unjust one, and whatever terrible things you can imagine people doing (torture, sexual assault, murder, animal cruelty, etc) can and probably are enacted in it, but what has, to me, set this series apart from some other “grim” fantasies is the balance between the knowledge that the world is an unfair, cruel, and terrible place, with the wholehearted belief that it shouldn’t, and doesn’t have to be. Idealism colors every action of the leads, and there’s something incredibly moving and powerful about characters who persevere against impossible odds towards fairness and justice despite encountering the very worst examples of their absence, never in ignorance or denial but out of pure stubbornness.
De Castell crafts a narrative with masterful control over how it’ll affect the reader; it’s melodrama in the best way, with huge operatic emotional beats. They never feel calculated – they’re all earnest, and they’re all earned. There are sections that make you weep, that make you laugh, and (I suspect this is the rarest, and most difficult to achieve) that make you want to cheer, stomp, salute. Moving speeches, incredible narrative payoffs, characters for whom you desperately root. Plus, of course, the suspense of peril and the best action sequences I’ve ever encountered in prose. De Castell’s first-person narration of fight scenes from the point of view of a strategist follows a pretty wonderful pattern of beginning the fight, edging the audience, and then turning to an aside that informs the context of the fight - a lesson learned long ago, an observation about the human condition, a technique frequently incorporated by duelists, an anecdote – and then return to the fight, the new context both heightening the peril and also providing a means by which the reader can fully appreciate the very clever way that the hero(s) win despite being outmatched. It’s a great internal “meanwhile, back at the ranch” and it gives each action encounter (and they are joyously plentiful) narrative weight.
Again, I can’t recommend the series more highly. It has some truly great characters – the leads, the supporting cast, the villains are wonderful and terrible, and the setting is rich and immersive. De Castell describes it as “swashbuckling fantasy,” and it swashbuckles its heart out.
You can get it in print, or in unabridged audiobook (Audible has it, and probably your library does, too), wonderfully narrated by Joe Jameson.
There are a number of other great characters, too – co-leads in their own right – but to draw them is to provide spoilers, so rather than do a whole cast, as I sometimes do, I’ve stuck to the three that you get from the first page.
There’s not too much visual description about the characters; Kest is described as of average height and build, with short hair, Brasti has hair long enough to tie back and a beard and is tall… and I think that’s it (at least so far as I’ve noticed, or remember).
There’s a tendency to make archers lean and wiry – it compliments the arrow imagery, and a tight, sinewy form seems a carryover of the bowstring to its user, but I wanted Falcio to be lean and triangular, and stoic Kest to be square, so it got me thinking that Brasti ought to have rounder features to offset and compliment the others. He’s a country boy, too, and where I’m from the troublemakers are often a little meatier, so it felt fitting, though it does suggest that he’s physically imposing in a way the stories don’t push. But I kind of like that beefy, country swagger he’s got. He’s carrying two bows, as it’s a plot point that he has bows for different purposes: a fast one, and a powerful one.
The eponymous coats were tricky; they’re practically magic; serving as armor (via little bone plates sewn under the leather) and utility belt, with little pockets for whatever the story may require the characters need. I wanted a way to make them modular, so I figured on making a pretty sturdy chest piece that folds back to allow the coat to be open and unbuttoned, and a rolled epaulet that unrolls and can be used as a gorget to protect the neck during a duel (or from the cold).
I wanted each of the characters to be able to wear the coat differently, to reflect their personalities: Kest, always at the ready and doing things the “right” way, has his greatcoat fully rigged. Byronic Falcio needs to be able to dash about with tragic romanticism, so his coat needs to be a little more open – I probably should’ve had the chestpiece partially unflapped ala the Rocketeer, but I also wanted it to read clearly. And Brasti wears his because he has to, so he has all the trappings tied or buttoned back.
For artist and writer pals, I’d highly recommend listening to any of De Castell’s interviews on podcasts or on youtube; he’s generous with his process and has a lot of great thoughts about the act of writing.
The Queen of Sets, grand dame of holiday pageantry - the last figure for this year’s offerings in the Companions of Christmas series, which spotlights winter Holiday characters from around the world. Pencils (drawn digitally) on the right, inks on the left, ready to be painted up.
Here’s the source for this costume, part of a series of drawings of characters/costumes drawn from life in 1836 by Isaac Mendes Belisario at the end-of-December Jonkonnu festival, to which I made very few changes in design (most of those to illicit an overall shape more conducive to cut-outs).
This month (exact date unknown, I believe) marks the 200th anniversary of the near-fatal grizzly mauling of mountain man Hugh Glass during the Rocky Mountain Fur Company’s 1822-23 expedition. I made a paper figure set of the company years back that you can download and print:
Glass was stripped of his equipment & left for dead by the two companions who were supposed to wait with him until he died; he survived despite terrible wounds and trekked 200 miles to the nearest outpost. After recuperating, he set off to hunt down the two men who doomed him.
He found, and forgave, the teen Bridges (possibly a misnamed 18/19-year-old Jim Bridger), and then found Fitzgerald, who had joined the army. Told by Fitzgerald’s officer that if he killed Fitz he would be killed himself, Glass let Fitz off with a warning: Leave the army, and you’re dead.
Glass’s survival yarn has been made into a movie twice: as the relatively recent Leo movie THE REVENANT, and back in the 70s as MAN IN THE WILDERNESS, with Richard Harris in the role.
Hey, friends! Join me tonight at 9 eastern/8 central/7 mtn/6 pacific for a detailed peak at the Santa’s Workshop DisPlayset, and the first-ever look at my three newest Christmas figures (they ain’t cut yet, but they’re on the wood, and ready).
Heya, friends! I’m going to do a livestream Tuesday evening to show off the new wooden wall-mounted Santa’s Workshop DisPlayset, show how I put one together, and answer questions about the project, the Christmas characters, whatever y'all are keen to ask. I hope you’ll join me!
cy-lindric
moldwood asked:
I tried looking around in search and in the archive, but most of the posts are from years ago so the answer might be different now. If it is different, I have the old tried and true question: what brushes do you use? Im in love with the subtle textures. Thank you!
Hello !
For my personal illustrations, I use mostly Procreate, so I’ll answer on my procreate brushes ; I use photoshop for my pro work and in that case it kind of just depends on the project and I have a lot of brushes I made or got working on different productions so I can’t really share.
My main inking brush on Procreate is the default brush called Dry Ink. I’ve modified it to reduce the pressure variation on thickness. I also sometimes use it for detailing for when I paint.
My main sketching brush is Color Burn from Tristan Yuvienco’s brush set. (I only use it in black, but I find it super comfortable for rough sketching).
For colour and painting, I use various brushes from Max Ulichney’s amazing Gouache Maxpack. Those gouache brushes are the best I’ve seen and they work great for me.
That’s basically my rotation. I sometimes use other stuff but I find that those allow me a fairly good range of rendering variations. Hope that helps !