Alright you lot, how is everyone?
Cracking on with this sketchbook series with a bit of fan-art today.
I had already sketched this idea out lightly so here I’m just going over it to make the
lines stand out a bit more so I wouldn’t lose them once I started laying on the paint.
So I decided to draw Muriel and Courage from courage the cowardly dog, after my Mermaid
Man painting, I realised how much I like drawing old people, all those wrinkles, and how much
I love re-inventing existing characters in my own style.
Some people like to turn their noses up at fan-art and it’s all gotta be about originality
and whatever but… no-one can say, no-one can tell you what you’re SUPPOSED to do
with your art.
And that applies in so many ways.
I got a question on tumblr the other day, I haven’t got round to answering it yet
but hopefully you’re watching, it was a question about whether I consider it okay
to sketch things out with pencil before going over it with pen, to feel reliant on that
sketching phase instead of just diving straight in with something more permanent like ink
or paint, and for me it’s always just been like… do what you want, do what works for
you, there’s no right or wrong.
If you’re happy with the outcome then thats all yours.
And I always use pencil too, I don’t care.
As long as you’re building your confidence and building your skills, and seriously most
importantly, enjoying what you do and not letting anyone put pressure on you to do things
a way that you don’t want to, just do what works for you.
And if you wanna draw fan-art, do that.
I mean obviously if you’re looking to pursue a career in art or you’re putting together
a portfolio to apply to an art school or something then you you’re gonna need a more diverse
repertoire of skills but if you’re drawing cos you wanna draw and maybe share things
online with people with similar interests, do that.
I don’t know if theres a huge courage the cowardly dog fandom out there but still.
And I hope that wasn’t all too preachy, I don’t even know how I ended up on that
tangent.
Anyway the painting itself, I wanted it to look like they were posing for a portrait,
something that would be hung up in that creepy house, and I wanted the colours to be close
to the cartoon but not too cartoony, a bit dirtier.
It ended up looking a bit creepy, especially courage, I wanted the purple in his fur to
have a bit of a fleshy tone to it, and it all just looked a bit weird but everything
about that show was weird and creepy anyway so I just went with it and almost amped up
the weirdness.
I lost a little bit of footage but basically just finished off the background, again giving
it quite a dirty grungy look and then painting a pattern on it like the wallpaper in their
house.
And then when it came to inking, I think this was my first time using this pen, I might
be wrong.
I’ll have it linked below anyway if you want to check it out but I picked it up after
I saw it on Jake Parkers list of like go-to art supplies.
I like that it’s like a brush pen but without the bristles, it’s a bit more rigid so i
do think you get a bit more control with it but you still get that difference in line
weight when you use different pressure.
I probably could’ve done with a finer point for the details, I do think it got a bit muddly
around the eyes and I don’t think the paint was completely dry either which won’t have
helped.
But yeah overall it turned out pretty much how I imagined it.
I don’t have much else to say to be honest.
So hopefully I’ve given a bit of helpful advice in this video.
But yeah, til tomorrow guys.
Bye!