Michi Mathias. illustration & comics.
  • home
  • about
    • now
    • interviews
  • DIY Vegan Cooking
  • Two Shillings
    • synopsis
  • comics
    • Just a Normal Day?
    • Up, Down or Stay the Same?
  • work with me
  • shop
  • contact

Six favourite tools of 2017

29/11/2017

0 Comments

 
There are other things -- including dip pens, special erasers, and google maps -- that have been very useful this year, but below are six indispensible items which have been invaluable to my work. 

Picture
I know how ridiculous this sounds, but when I lost my favourite pencil in the middle of a big project, I really felt like I couldn't draw. It's the only pencil I've used for at least a couple of years and I couldn't just go buy another as it came from Muji in London, sixty miles away. 

So what's the big deal about it? Well, propelling pencils are great for drawing, what with the consistent line width and no sharpening, but this one also has the special quality of feeling like a real wooden pencil, nice and light unlike the clunky plastic types. I've gotten entirely used to it, and love how it feels in my hand every time I pick it up. Fortunately I remembered I'd probably bought an extra one (they're cheap as well) and managed to find it on a shelf, to my great joy (then a few hours later my old one was found on the sofa).

​This is a line spacer for making consistent lettering heights when writing text into speech bubbles. A more complex one called the Ames guide, which seems to be the industry standard for hand letterers, offers far more options, but this is plenty for me (and was more available and affordable). I just put a pencil tip into a hole, pull it sideways along the blue triangle guide to give me a baseline for a line of text, and then skip one hole vertically in the same column to make a 6mm space to write within.  

Undoubtedly there's a lot more I could be doing with it, but this is enough. For now. It's made a big difference to the consistency of the lettering in my comics. I only wish I'd known about it earlier!
Picture
Picture

​

I usually ink with a flexible fountain pen, the red Noodler's Creaper, and finally found a waterproof ink that doesn't a) take so long to dry that you smudge it constantly, or conversely b) start flowing so slowly from the nib that it takes all the spontaneity out of your linework. This is De Atramentis Archive Ink, and I'm very happy with it. 

Also, I succumbed to a second fountain pen with a very fine nib, the TWSBI Eco (for 'economy' - about  twentynine quid). 
​


Plain old post-it notes have been absolutely ideal for working out page layouts for comics, moving panels, changing panels, adding panels. This is like an analogue form of what digital artists do easily, but before I thought of it I was having to start whole pages over every time I wanted to change something even in an early draft. And that was making me hesitant to even start things. Of course, panels are not all this exact size and shape, so it's a simple matter of taping together or trimming post-its. 
Picture
Picture





I saw this watercolour set with 24 colours on sale and had to have it as my existing one had only twelve. I once did a watercolour course in which we made all our colours from the three primaries in tubes, and I admire those with that skill and patience and interest but it's not for me. I'm not a proper watercolourist and just don't enjoy mixing up my own colours; plus, if I'm trying to match colours across a multi-page comic, there's the added difficulty of re-doing the same blend, or having made up a massive quantity. 

And now I've found a new set with 45 colours! And a lot more space for thinning with water. That might feature in next year's list... 



​My lightbox (or light table? though it's neither a box or a table) continues to be a great time-saver, and allower of experimental layouts which can then be changed without losing everything and starting over. I can place a new sheet of paper over a draft I've sketched and draw it a little better -- hoping to avoid, however, perfecting all the life out of the original, which is liable to happen. Sometimes I'll scan my draft of some element of a scene, print it bigger or smaller as needed, and use the lightbox to easily put it into the frame at a different size. 
Picture

​So, those are mine at the moment. What are your favourite tools?
0 Comments

What did I learn from #inktober 2017?

20/11/2017

1 Comment

 
For #inktober this year, I decided I would use the daily drawing to improve in one of my weakest areas - human beings. I would make myself do faces with expressions, and whole-body active postures, and also practise drawing people on old bikes as prep for Two Shillings per Day, the graphic novel I'm working on. But did I manage to achieve this?  Here are all the days' efforts: 
Looking back over the month, I don't think I learnt what I set to learn -- most of the faces ended up just the way I always draw faces, not very expressive at all, nor did I actually do more than a few interesting postures. But there were a few useful results...

- I did get some good practice drawing peeps on old bikes, from looking at reference photos.
- Most surprising, I discovered that biro is really fun! I temporarily lost my fountain pen, and found that drawing straight to ink with biro can be a little bit pencilish - start with very light sketchy marks, gradually emphasise the right ones, and the end effect doesn't look too bad. 
- I still don't really get on with ink wash for colouring. Much prefer watercolour, so I'll stick with that for the time being.  

It was helpful in any case to have a purpose behind my inktober, as it's quite an effort to keep going every day even doing fairly simple drawings. So, roll on inktober 2018... 
1 Comment
    Click to see: What am I doing right NOW?
    ​
    ===================​

    ​
    ​Note: Two Shillings per Day graphic novel-related posts now appear over here on their own page. 

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Advertising
    Art Trail
    Billboard
    Book
    Business Cards
    Camping
    Challenges
    Children
    Classes & Workshops
    Comics
    Cycling
    Food
    Graphic Novel
    Health
    History
    Hourly Comic Day
    Inktober
    Ireland
    Launch
    Magazine
    Mobile Phones
    Music
    Newspaper
    Postcards
    Radio
    Recipes
    Review
    Sketchnotes
    Tea Towels
    Theatre
    The Guardian
    Tools
    Two Shillings Per Day
    Window

    Archives

    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013


Michi Mathias     illustration & comics    

Picture