Sunday 21 March 2010

Experimenting with quick stories and quick shading.


Story loosly based on Charles Whitman who ' killed 14 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage' from a belltower' After he somehow cropped up in a conversion between me and friends.




Quick fix dealing with chui's comment.






I've been working on gummed watercolor paper blocks so i can put heavy washes on without the paper bulging from the water. makes the whole process alot faster and the end result smoother as the washes don't run from the raised areas.

And in case anyone is interested here are the tools I used to make this.

1. 'cartoonist' nib has a nice round tip that makes the same continuous line. Used it for the borders

2. This nib has a smaller flick at the tip which helps when using watercolour paper as other nibs just have a straight tip that can scratch and snag the paper. ( both tips are D. Leonardt & Co. a Birmingham pen manufacturer. Can't find any good websites for them though. Check in Spectrum. )

3. 4B pencil becasue my usual B is about an inch long now.

4. My favorite brush to use at the moment its called a 'dagger' because of the straight top edge and curve on the other. I really like shading with this as alot of the time it has a mind of its own.

5. And a normal pointed brush to clean up lines and fill smaller areas with.


Doing a few quick experiments today that I think should help my narrative writing skills.
I sat down infront of the tv and skipped through the channels looking for anything that caught my eye. I picked 4 things and did a quick sketch of what they could look like.

This is what I came up with;


After I started to get each character or plot device I started to make connections in my head and ways the characters would interact.

The rough plot I have so far is;
-Knight searches for lost treasures.
-Finds a cave with the usual skulls and dragon junk
-Walks inside to find the tapir after some nervous panels
-Knight goes to kill the tapir but it pleads and says the only way to get the treasure is by killing the evil rain cloud that keeps flooding the cave
-knight kills cloud
-gets the treasure which is a delicate lampshade
-chops tapirs head off

Without using the tv to get the 4 ideas I don't think I would ever have just thought up the 4 together.

Anyone else want to try this?

4 comments:

Chiu said...

Brilliant post about the materials you use. not sure if the really strong black contrast works with the subtlety of your grey washes.

Tom Chippendale said...

Yeah I understand what you mean it makes that corner heavier than it should be.

Chiu said...

but I don't think your quick fix works - it's flattened your image! AhAhAHAHHAHA, take your time :)

Unknown said...

Hah, love the picture just as much as the work in progress pictures.
Great blog, Will be reading it regulary from now on :)