Cup Doodle: December 2009

Monday, December 28, 2009

Sketchbook 2009: Complete!

Actually I hit the last page of this a few weeks ago, and dove into an all-new, larger format sketchbook. This one was great, tho, it's the Cachet Studio series which I highly recommend. It comes in handy, varied sizes in an array of nice colors. I find them at Aaron Bros. but are pretty widely available. I always feel a nice sense of accomplishment when filling one from end to end :-)

The art on the cover I swiped from 1969's Green Lantern #72, by the ever-astounding Gil Kane (with wonderful brushwork inks by Joe Giella). Kane was neck deep into his Green Lantern run by this point, but he was still kicking out some amazing stuff. His work is looser, organic, and the pages are just crammed with art making use of less-traditional compositions. Certainly the great artists that would come out of the seventies were inspired by Kane's seemingly endless dynamism page after page.

For my homage, with panel reference in hand I sketched out best I could trying to keep the inspiration intact. Then I inked with a Sakura Brush Pen as quickly as possible, trying hard not to think about the copy but instead to "feel" the blacks within the strokes. That is super art-geeky talk, but it's hard not to while in the shadow of the masters who came long before me.