exploration and experimentation 2

hey folks. recently... patreon finally released a photoset feature!!! now i can upload things in a more intuitive way (art dumps). i can also caption images now... so i just wrote some explanations there.

i haven't super done a lot of traditional art... but it's been a while... so a little bit every once in a while does end up being quite a lot that i can share still.

the first chunk are comics. everything about them is difficult.
it's hard to edit and tweak even just for legibility because the paper frequently starts tearing or buckling from too much media, sometimes even if i wait for it to draw.
it's hard to draw consistent sequences without being able to lay the previous panel's image under the next for reference.
all of the panel lines look straight to my eyes until i take a picture of the comic or hit the edge of the page; even if i use a ruler it can be straight but tilted.
the gel ink i use to write the words boldly enough to capture on camera clogs and spurts randomly and comes out too thick to fit the letters well, yet other kinds of ink like from prismacolors or ballpoint doesn't take well on top of media like paint.
the canvas is an extremely restrictive amount of space and thumbnailing ahead of time only somewhat mitigates this and wastes even more paper.
a lot of these things are things i could fix in post-production digitally, but it feels frustrating. it would have looked better altogether if i had done it digitally... if i wanted to sit there tweaking letters and borders on my computer, what was the point of making the comic with a less familiar, uglier, more stressful medium? the fact that i have no actual scanner and use my phone to take photos also makes it harder to easily edit them -- the white isn't white, the black isn't really black, etc.
that's probably a bad attitude to have, but needless to say, that's why i haven't done longer comics traditionally yet. i'm getting the feeling i might prefer doing comics in ink wash style still instead of trying to utilize the poscas more than for editing and embellishments, though. the looser look lends itself to the messiness of the process, and it adds a lot of texture in the blending inherent to washes and watercolors.

speaking of washes, i didn't particularly enjoy how it felt to do them on paper actually designed for watercolors and wet media (also more expensive). it felt like the bleed that i liked so much didn't happen, and the colors needed to be layered to be as bold as they come onto cheaper paper on the first try. the white gel pen really worked well with the washes, though.

i'm also still trying to find a sketching utensil that works for me... besides the blue pencil, i have some basic (eraserless) graphite pencils of varying shades, and then really cheap and old colored pencils that i tried once, and couldn't stand the sensory experience of rubbing them on paper AT ALL. the 3-panel comic with needle i initially tried to sketch with varying colored pencils.

not vibrant at all (the first panel is significantly lighter because i was trying to use the sky blue pencil, but the rest i just used the blue sketching pencil). i'd ideally like to still try to pursue the idea, but i need to poke around to see if there's a rainbow of differently colored pencils for sketching... being able to sketch and erase really takes the edge off for me and makes me more open to doing traditional art for fun more.

... you can see that i smudged the gel i went over it with too. the ones that smudged were because i have several sets of gel pens, and some of them are significantly cheaper. it takes them a really long time to dry, and the patience necessary to let something dry before continuing is something i've still really been struggling with for this medium.
even in the final version, i mainly only tried to roll a white posca over it to cover up some of the obvious smudging, knowing it was still too wet to fully go over... the first time i did that, that gave me the idea to give the backgrounds some colorful but subtle-ish texture in the 2-panel colored comic with dupe and gray up there. it has its uses, but super frustrating to be trying to mix media with wildly different drying rates. it'll probably clear up after setting down more white when it's dry (or rip the paper).

anyway, i think that's all i have for now. i'm hoping to play more with the colorful, lighter lining style, and color washing the unfinished comics, and maybe trying a couple others with looser consistency in mind, and find better sketching utensils (note to self: buy a pack of erasers... i whittled my only sketching pencil's eraser down to nothing already...)