So I feel a little guilty doing two non-art-related posts, so here is what I was working on last night, the pencils for the last panel of the first page and yes, I both ink and pencil a page at the same time, it’s a benefit of being all digital.

This is the first time I’ve done a drawing of this character that I’m mostly happy with.  I’ve been trying to find a look for her face using various actresses and models as reference.  Funny enough, I get a look I’m happy with when I’m not using any ref, go figure.  This, by the way, is one of the three main characters, the other two are introduced in subsequent pages.

I learned a lot just doing this first page, first, that I can get away with just doing loose sketches for backgrounds before going to the “ink” step but for characters I definitely need to do tighter “pencils”.  This drawing resulted from an aborted attempt to do my inks over a very rough sketch of the character.  Maybe after I’ve drawn her a couple hundred times, and I’m better at getting ink strokes I’m happy with I’ll be able to do that, but not while I’m still figuring both her and that process out.  Second, don’t be afraid to scrap work and start a section over, thats the glory of layers, I can hide a layer of work I don’t like and try again, and choose which one I think is better.  Third, sometimes it’s just better to move on and call something good enough.

And for those going “Wait, you are still working on the first page!?”  Yes, I’ve had a bad bout of migraines lately (that’s where the Pained Brain moniker came from), and the last thing I want to do at the end of a day of toiling on a computer with a migraine is to get back on another computer to draw.  It’s also why I want to build up a good buffer, just for times like these when it’s just physically impossible for me to work on it.