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handtoeye — Knuckles - The Takeover pt1 p2
Published: 2009-07-03 06:46:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 3141; Favourites: 65; Downloads: 28
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Description
A painted page from Sonic the Comic. The strip was written by Nigel Kitching - the Floating Island is taken over by criminals. Sort of Die Hard with Knuckles.Related content
Comments: 21
Ah Porker Lewis.. I cant believe I recognised this. Good old STC UK.
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Man I love that grin you gave Knuckles in the corner seems to add more character to the drawing making him feel more dimensional.
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By the way, this was years ago, but after Sonic Chronicles was announced for the Nintendo DS, screenshots of it reminded of art styles like yours I saw when reading STC: Think you were one of their inspirations?: [link]
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I always looked forward to your style of Knux back then and still look great ( really has to buy the retro sonic the comic again, the ones my brother and me shared disappeared TxT.
Any how what kind of colour media is used here?
(wants to learn *blushes* )
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Hi. Thanks for the nice comments. The linework on this was done with Edding fibre tip pens in various widths. The colour here is mainly FW acrylic inks applied in layers with brush and airbrush with coloured pencils to finish it off.
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No trouble and thank you for the meduim advice
I will try and save up for a copic airbrush and the graphic pens
while also trying the other mediums you mentioned.
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I love your arts. You were definitely one of my favourite STC artists.
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Thankyou! I'll try to post up some more STC artwork when I get the chance.
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I always wondered how you did thouse pages as well! I'd sit for hours with my STC trying to copy the characters! I must admit, I do love the style. There's just something that hand coloured work has that digital doesn't, although I can sympathise with the smudgy ink if you're not careful! Still, to me it doesn't look old... I just wished when I moved I'd taken my comics with me! Next time I'm back at my parents I am going into the loft for a nostalgia trip! I have every STC up until the some of the re-prints! ... that's really sad isn't it? LOL!
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If you're sad, I must be doubly so - I have the entire run of 2000AD under our bed: over 30 years' worth!
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Beautiful work Nigel! I love looking at your pages and working out how you approached the painting, did you use a combination of airbrush and acrylic ink?
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Hi Zak
By the later pages, I was using FW acrylic inks with brush and airbrush, coloured pencil, ink, biro and the odd bit of pastel, watercolour and gouache!
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Wow, it all looks so seamless, I'd never have guessed there were so many techniques being used at once!
Thanks for answering my question, I've been wondering that since I was about 9!
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Everything bar the kitchen sink, eh? To be honest, this stuff looks pretty scruffy to me now, rather than seamless, but I know a lot of people prefer that.
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Haha, I think you must be your own worst critic in that case, they still look wonderful to me! Do you do much painting these days? I always want to myself but find the allure of levels and history and all the other safety nets too tempting.
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Gotta love those safety nets - I used to hate it when I'd been inking something and ended up dragging my hand across ink that hadn't dried! I love Illustrator.
I now work in a box room about a quarter the size of the one I used to have my drawing board in - couldn't even fit it in now! Still enjoy drawing by hand, but I think the painting days are long gone. Only thing I miss a bit is the perpective construction I used to do on the board - having managed to come up with a good digital solution to that, apart from drawing really really small.
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How did you do your perspective construction on the board if you don't mind me asking? I tend to do perspective pretty much by eye, as every time I use the recommended methods my stuff comes out looking too square and rigid, something your work never suffers from.
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I learnt perspective from a book called 'Creative Perspective' by Robert W. Gill - aimed more at architects than comic artists.
Working on a large engineering drawing board (it was about 6 feet across) gave me room to establish vanishing points well away from the paper I was working on (usually 2 point perspective). This meant the image didn't become distorted, which would happen if the vanishing points were too close together. Then I'd use those and a very long plastic rule to draw in my perspective lines before constructing the image. My drawing board eventually became covered in little crosses, which sometimes made it hard to remember which vanishing point was which!
If I needed to repeat a certain setting, such as Knuckles' Emerald Chamber, I'd construct the image from a floor plan. I won't go into the details for the latter as I haven't done it in a long time, and it was quite involved.
Nowadays, I generally get by with Studio 3D Max, which I find gives a much more naturalistic effect, especially for interiors or buildings. I just do a simple construction and take a snapshot of it from whatever angle I want, then use that as a reference.
Don't know if that helps!
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That's exceptionally helpful Nigel, thanks!
I think my biggest mistake has been having all my points far too close together, causing the perspective to look very forced and bizarre.
I'll try to check out that book and give the 3d model approach a go too!
Many, many thanks for the pearls of wisdom Nigel, I really appreciate it!
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No problem. Have you got any work post DFC? Great shame about that - your artwork was looking lovely.
Just got Jamie Smart's 'Ubu Bubu' collection from SLG - fantastic stuff.
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Cheers, I've been doing a few commissions for people but no published work since the DFC unfortunately.
I've been spending the spare time honing my work and I think it's improved quite a bit in the intervening months, I just need to be more proactive about getting my stuff seen by editors I think.
I'll have to check out the Ubu Bubu book, it sounds great, Jamie's comics are never short on chuckles!
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