Back in March, I was contacted by a small publisher in Italy about the use of one of my drawings as a cover.

I don’t speak Italian, so here is what I know about the book from email with the publisher:

The book is a story of a lady who lived with breast disease. It is divided into three parts, one in which there is the discovery of the disease, the second with the intervention and treatment, the third with the complete healing. She tells of her emotions, feelings and the way that this disease has provided up to the recent healing. The publisher is ‘Apogeo Editore’ and the website is www.libreria-Apogeo.it.

I was very impressed with the production quality of the book and I’m really happy with how they used my drawing. Grateful for the opportunity to be involved, too.

To do: figure out why, when settings are identical, one scanner produces the gritty, low-res scan on the left and the other produces a pretty close facsimile of the actual sketch.

The left-hand scanner is the big one, the 11X17. I got it because I work bigger than letter-size most of the time and I dislike piecing scans together. I usually have to do a lot of work with its scans to make them satisfactory.

The right-hand was a cheapie scanner I picked up on a whim maybe five years ago. It has been stepped on (trod upon, for my friends across the pond, and also Trev and eFlo,) knocked to the floor by the kitten; it definitely has rattling pieces inside it somewhere, but it still works terrifically. It’s just small.

“You can’t always get what you want,” said the man wiser than me.

Something I have been meaning to do for awhile was to sit down and try to learn Google SketchUp. I was intimidated by it, having had some headaches and frustration with various other 3D programs, like Blender, 3DS and Maya. After working through the video tutorials, I found out that SketchUp is nowhere near as complicated, and is actually very fun to use. SketchUp is not a scary spider and will not throw me in the basement.

Here’s a couple of views of my first try, a fighter or maybe scout-class spaceship with varying degrees of detail.

A Little Spaceship

It took me a couple of hours to model this, but I think I could do it in half that now. Seriously, the tools in SketchUp make it that easy and fast.

Pew-Pew Vroom!

I’m working on a science fiction project right now and I intend to build some ships of various sizes, as well as a funky spaceport, to help with drawing various angles in perspective.

Update 06/27/08: Since this post, two companies have written to me about mentioning their Google SketchUp plugin or other product. I don’t mind at all, but it’s interesting that I’m getting this kind of response to one small post about SketchUp. Is there that little buzz about SketchUp right now that even the humble Glimbit blog gets some attention, or are these two different companies just actively and aggressively marketing their products anywhere and everywhere SketchUp is mentioned?

At any rate, I don’t intend to post much about SketchUp, but if I try out those plugins, I’ll post my thoughts.

Doodle sketch of a Space Captain! 12/03/07

Here’s a video of this quick sketch of you-don’t-know-who, (because it looks nothing like him.) (sigh.)

Not a really great sketch, but like a public speaker who watches videos of himself to improve, this is kind of helping me critique my style. I recommend the exercise to you drawers out there. I used CamStudio, (a free desktop video recorder,) Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. Windows Movie Maker does a fine job of speeding up the video, or if you’re on a Mac I think there’s a nice video program there, too.

I went to the well of the interwebs today in search of tips and tricks on capturing a likeness in comic book art. I stumbled upon several tid-bits from pencilers and editors who produce comics based on licensed properties, like Buffy and Star Wars.

Jo Chen is doing some of my favorite “likeness” type work right now. Her covers have been energetic, stylized, and the characters very recognizable.

Draw Buffy, not Sarah Michelle Gellar

“I think it’s the likenesses that have taken me that much longer to finish an issue. I really sweat over them, but Joss Whedon told me something that really set me on the right path. He said he didn’t want the characters to look like photographs and have that stiffness. He said I don’t want you to draw Sarah Michelle Gellar, I want you to draw Buffy. Which just clicked with me. I still struggle, but not as much.” - Georges Jeanty, artist for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8. (interview)

Energy

“I do my best to try and capture the right feel or essence of the characters. I feel like if get too caught up in worrying about the likeness the drawings become a little stale. The energy in the drawing is really the most important thing to me.” - Brian Ching, penciler for Star Wars: Republic on drawing the likenesses of the characters (interview)

Dangers of using publicity photos

Maloney and Ponder capture character likenesses without any of those horrible “drawn from publicity photo” sequential story-killers the old DC Next Generation series relied so heavily on, and also the one from Malibu. If you ever draw the art for a licensed product, this is how to do it. (link)

Comfortably loose drawing and clear storytelling

It’d be easy to get guys who could do good likenesses, but most of them would do pretty boring comics. I love Cliff [Richards]’s work for being able to do easily recognized likenesses but still having a comfortably loose drawing style and clear storytelling, which I think are among the most important talents in a comics artist. Christian Zanier’s likenesses are more photographic than Cliff’s, which some of the fans really like, and he also has a darker style than Cliff does, which I think is right for Angel. Christian’s probably the best likeness guy we’re using, but he never would’ve got the job JUST based on his ability to draw the faces. It’s the style and the power in his work I care about more than the fact he can draw a perfect image of Buffy. Then there’s Ryan, who some fans positively hate, but who I think perfectly balances many of Christian’s strengths with many of Cliff’s. His likenesses are definitely the weakest of these three, but I think he makes up for it in other ways. - Scott Allie, Editor on the Buffy comics (link)

To summarize, likenesses are important to capture, but energetic drawing that clearly gets the story across is even more important. You have to honor the likeness of the character, just ask any fan. I must have read 10 reviews of comics from fans that all had various complaints about likenesses in an artist’s work, including those praised by their editors. Still, work to draw the character above all else, including the actor’s likeness. You can use some caricaturing techniques to maintain an “illusion” of likeness, too.

These come from Tom Richmond’s MAD blog, one of my top five favorite blogs out there. In this great response to a reader’s email, he discusses two tricks he uses when working on his Mad pieces.

1. Use key features - find the attribute that is special to the person, (head shape, chin, nose, etc.) and make sure that “key” shows up in all drawings, no matter what the expression.
2. Use keystone drawings - Like an animator’s key frames that capture the extreme, dynamic moment in an action, draw spot-on likenesses and link them with the more extrapolated likenesses you have to draw (because of expressions or actions without reference, the ones you need to make up.) The viewer will have the impression that they are seeing the same character throughout, even if you don’t nail the likeness each and every time.

Artist Tom Ngyuen wrote a great article about capturing likenesses at the “comiccon.com website, but the website’s image links are broken: “I Draw the Line: Face Off.” A few tips from the article:

Nail the T-Shape, the “T” from eyes to nose. It will vary in size and shape, and will help you solidify the eyes and nose which will be the foundation of your likeness. He got this tip from from Tom Richmond.

Some other “Keys” to look at:
• shape of the upper lip (the “M” shape)
• how much gums are showing in a smile
• shape of the chin–is it more rounded or more square? Is it a butt chin?
• laugh lines/dimples
• shape and height of the ears; attached or unattached ear lobes?
• shape of the hairline

And for drawing the beautiful people, who have notoriously difficult likenesses to capture, look for these keys:

• thickness/thinness of eyebrows, and the direction of their curve
• thick or thin eyelids and eyelashes
• how much nostril is showing (flare of the nostril)
• shape of the lips

Muscles and Bones, Front View
7/9/07

In an effort to learn bones and muscles, I drew this anatomical front view by combining info from Loomis’ “Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth,” and Peck’s “Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist.” Mostly Loomis’ book.

It’s been a long time since I sat down and drew this stuff. I normally just stare at it for a second, get bored and move on. Drawing from these anatomy books has helped my made-up figures look a little more solid and believable, I think. I imagine one can spend a lifetime trying to get this stuff right. Next up: side and rear views! If my sanity holds.

Download a PDF version (611 Kb)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

True confession: I never learned the names of the muscles! Truthfully, I barely remember where most of them go. Time to fix that! Here are a few books I’ve been using lately.

Anatomy References

Page from Figure Drawing for
All It’s Worth
by Andrew Loomis

• Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth
• Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck
• Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis - This one is really old, but for me, it’s the best. I really hope someone puts this back into print.

Both Loomis’ book and Hogarth’s book instruct on how to draw the figure from imagination, without a model or photos. I’m working on this in the sketchbook now. Nothing too exciting here in these sketches of Green Lantern. The back view is based on a pose in the Loomis book.

Just drawing some Green Lanterns