Long John

This is a drawing I did of a character by my friend and local comic creator, Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics), that he intends to debut shortly. It was meant as further practice for drawing on the iPad, but it turned out well enough that I sent it on to Kyrun to do whatever he wants with it as he prepares to launch a Kickstarter.

I realize every time I post a drawing from the iPad on here, I say it’s “for practice.” Though I’ve had the thing for almost two years, I don’t feel comfortable with it as a tool for creating finished artwork. Part of my issues are tactile––the float of pen across screen––another part is just unfamiliarity with the nuances of the program. I have used Photoshop since 1999 or so, so that art program has fully soaked into my cellular structure and trying to learn any other program has been Sisyphean as a result. There are workarounds to my issues. There are overlays I can put on the screen to make the pen drag feel more like paper. Obviously, the more I use Procreate the more comfortable it will become. But the distractions are enough to keep me from picking up the thing in the first place.

That being said, I do use Procreate and the iPad for professional purposes. I created all of the layouts and thumbnails for Chapter 5 using the program and other, smaller stories, and I genuinely don’t think I’ll go back. It’s perfect for that task.

For this drawing, I put the machine to the test to make as finished a drawing as I could make from scratch, digitally. I focused mostly on the figure itself, and am pleased with the line work and rendering I was able to lay down. As you can tell, I went wild with some of the effects. Starcore has a propulsion system that allows him to fly via jets/vents in the shins and calves. One of my goals was to create the sense of compressed energy, built up to launch a guy in a machine suit into the sky. It was fun to play with the menus and options that I don’t normally get to tinker with for Long John.

It was a fun drawing to do, though I can’t help but think about ways to continue tinkering with it every time I sit down to look at it. Kyrun liked it, though, which is the most important thing.