I‘ve been doing a lot of drawing in my sketchbook recently. I try to do at least a little bit every day. I’m told that the best way to hone one’s craft is to practice daily, and I’m finding that this wisdom seems to be true. The more I draw, I more comfortable I become with my cartooning. But there are still some areas where I struggle, one of which is with drawing hands (a not uncommon problem for artists). So, I’ve been ‘borrowing’ art from other cartoonists in an effort to get a feel for various methods of drawing.
Several pages in my sketchbook contain characters from Dave Kellet’s wonderful “Sheldon”:http://www.sheldoncomics.com/ comic. His style of art is similar to the type I want to emulate once I get my own “Starchips”:http://starchipscomic.com off the ground, and so it is his comic that serves as my primary inspiration for developing my own art style. I’ve also ‘borrowed’ some art from Dave Reddick’s “Legend of Bill”:http://www.legendofbill.com comic and Kris Straub’s “Starslip”:http://starslip.com comic. These are all comics I enjoy for the stories, the humor, and the art. There are plenty of others, as well, but these are the ones I’ve been looking at closely and drawing the most of lately in order to refine some of my own trouble spots.
Below are a couple of recent examples of what I’m working on. I think I’m starting to get better…
