I am super excited to be a vendor at the very first comic-con hosted by local game shop, Great Escape Games! Even though it’s a show about comics, it’s being hosted at Sacramento’s premier spot for tabletop gaming––from role-playing games to wargaming, Great Escape Games’ Summer Comic-Con is the place to go for anyone with nerdy tastes! I hope to see you there!
Date: Saturday, August 3, 2024
Time: 12 PM – 8 PM
Where: 1250 Howe Ave #3A Sacramento, CA
Admission: FREE
With the summer here, work on Chapter 6 is going full speed ahead. I draw and ink in batches of 3-4 pages (depending on complexity) and have been making steady progress over the last month. Most importantly, I’ve been really happy with how the pages have turned out.
Progress is always seen in the rear-view mirror, and I always worry about how much I’m actually stunting my progress because––as I’ve stated before––I’m not someone who draws a lot. I tend to draw when I either a) force myself to or b) draw pages of the comic. So, along with all the normal intrusive thoughts of self-doubt and despair, there’s the added worry of whether I’ve worsened in the intervening time.
This is one of those few times when I actually feel the improvement, especially when it comes to the finished pages. When I’m digging into a page and getting it drawn, it’s all small goals and step-by-step challenges. With that, there’s been a fun realization that occurs after I finish inking a page and I sit back and think, “woah, that’s an entire page!” Luckily, that surprise and joy has been happening a lot as I continue through chapter 6 of Long John.
One triumph I’m especially feeling with these pages is a real step forward––not huge, but it’s there––with my inking. I can’t qualify it and I’m not going to say it’s consistent, but something about the line quality and control has resulted in either panels or entire pages that feel, to me, “professional” or, at least, professional-adjacent. I’ve always been down on my inking, mostly since I don’t lean too heavily into rendering and textures (saving that work for the coloring stage, generally), but I’ve gained a confidence with my tools to try some stuff out and, the results of which, were pleasing.
So, as a big experiment in terms of style and technique, I can say each chapter of Long John has had me clear a new artistic hurdle. It’s nice to see that continue, in a holistic and aggregate kind of way, into chapter 6.
I didn’t really discuss the actual drawing in the post for last week’s Sketch Friday of Furiosa, mostly because I knew I would be making a process video about it––a new entry in the “D. Bethel Draws…” series.
The one thing I gloss over in the video is a tool that I’ve added to my quiver in the form of a fountain pen by LAMY, specifically their Safari model. I was inspired to pick up a fountain pen for a few reasons. First, and more immediately, I’ve been enamored by the sketches that artist Paul Heaston has been posting on Instagram. His work encapsulates an ethos and approach that I have in my head but do not embody. He’s confident in his ability, but does not strive for photographic perfection (not that I do, either). Straight lines wobble, proportions vary, but every drawing he posts is believable, confident, and so full of creative life that it looks perfect in its imperfection. He’s drawing with ease that’s clearly informed by years and years of study and work. It’s a goal. While I aim for it, so far there’s something about the lines created by the fountain pen that lend a certain sense of surety to my hand as I’ve been practicing with it. At the very least, I find it a great tool to get ideas down and worked out to then translate to other platforms.
The second reason I’ve had my eye on a fountain pen is because of my dad, who exclusively draws with a fountain pen and has done so for my entire life, at least. He wouldn’t call himself a capital-A artist, but he has always drawn and is very good at what he does and excels even further when he digs in. He is the son of a professional commercial artist and has an innate talent and ability that he uses across the spectrum from napkin cartoons (his preferred genre) to carefully planned illustrations (from cartoon wolf avatars to exactingly rendered classic cars and everything in-between). The one tool that is always present, though, is his trusty fountain pen (usually a Waterman, by my recollection).
While I don’t think the fountain pen will become my main artistic tool, it has been a boon for generating and sketching out ideas. Also, it’s not a totally foreign tool to me––for four of the six years I co-wrote and drew my previous webcomic, Eben07, I inked nearly exclusively with dip pens (pens with detachable nibs that you dip into a bottle of ink). Fountain pens work on the same principle as dip pens, they’re just more manageable and less messy. But there is an entire array of tools within the flex of the nib of a fountain pen that makes it really appealing, and one that definitely helped get this Furiosa fan art out of my head and done much faster than if I had just tried from the start to create it digitally.