Jenny Dolfen

Process video: sketching a busy scene

Added 2023-03-29 09:36:25 +0000 UTC

Here's a little (unnarrated, no voice still! ;)) video of me inching towards the sketch stage I showed you yesterday. (For some reason, I seem to have mirrored that canvas before I started sketching, so the programme faithfully recorded everything flipped.

I've picked up a new thing that I've always used to do wrong: I do two sketches on top of each other, one rough gesture sketch just for positions and veeery rough gestures, then a more refined one that serves as basis for my lineart (hope to start that today).

I used to wonder why people did two sketches, because my experience was that I always lost dynamics with each; now I've realised that the trick is the keep the first one so rough that you've got the gesture down pat before you put in any detail work with your second go. Preserving the first sketch - here, on a separate layer, but a piece of paper works too - means you can always go back if you're losing movement, and see where you went off course.

For the artists among you, what's a revelation about your process that suddenly worked true miracles?