How many of you guys draw?
Here’s the thing- I learned to draw with a brush years ago, and it’s served me very well for a lot of reasons. And now Kolinsky Sable brushes are very hard to get. They’re the best brushes for inking with. Seriously, they’re great. Raphael brushes, Isabey, or Windsor-Newton Series 7s. Nice lines.
But like I said, they’re hard to get these days.
So, needing new brushes, you try out what’s available. Especially if your friends recommend them.
I think I’ve mentioned here before that I got a nice brush pen with ink cartridges that I liked quite a bit. Twenty bucks for the pen, and maybe 11 bucks for a pack of refill cartridges. It took some getting used to, but it seemed to be a good thing. Plus, without the ink bottles, and the little pads of paper for pointing my brush, and the careful cleanup of Kolinsky Sable brushes, the nifty little Pentel brush pen seemed so convenient. And it IS convenient.
But I got out the ol’ Kolinsky Sable brush again, cleaned it carefully just in case, cracked open a new bottle of Higgens Black Magic ink and drew the latest couple of cartoons.
And I realize that as nice and convenient and seemingly as slick as that Pentel brush pen is, the control and the line and the feel and the final product that comes off a good brush with good ink is far superior.
Honestly, for the past few months, I’ve been kicking myself and wondering why my backgrounds had gotten so… dull. I thought I was losing my touch, or my eyesight, or something.
But it was the brush. Using the sable brush again, I dived at the backgrounds and enjoyed the lines and appreciated the feel of the whole thing much, much better.
I think the last time I mentioned that brush pen, someone commented that they hadn’t noticed the change in the art. And that’s good news. But I think, unless something goes pretty squiffy, I’ll be happier drawing with my stupidly expensive, hard-to-get brushes.
And so, if any of you guys draw… there’s some mindless cartoonist trivia for you.
For everyone else… Hey, look! it’s a cartoon about eating a bug! Hahahahahahaha!
I don’t use brushes, but color pencils and good old #2’s. Been at it for a long time. I can’t cartoon though, I envy those that can cartoon and do caricatures. I totally understand about the right tool (and sometimes hard to get and mind droppingly expensive).
Meanwhile, what the bleep was Hubris blathering about on the first panel? Does he get motormouth when he’s dropping stress? He needs a good climb, he does…
http://www.rexart.com/richeson-kolinsky-sable-oil-brushes.html?gclid=CPLW7uqigc4CFQYJaQodo5IOpw half off right now, not sure how fine of a brush you use.
Greg, have you been following the latest arc over at Funky Winkerbean? Are we going to have to pull you out of jail soon?
Bugs!!!!
Never mention swallowing bugs to a programmer.
Or during gnat or mayfly season. Or ever have a fly crawl in your straw, take a slurp and bounce that bit of flying raisin off the back of your throat as it goes down? 🙂
I have about 30 or so of those brushes in a box.. somewhere. I am too shaky to use them now.
oh my now he is a “bug connaisseur”
that is something i admit i wasn’t expecting…i wonder how he would react to the fly swarms that i saw at times in Africa as a kid
GIANT BUFFET? or not lol
I never really learned to ink with a brush. I had heard pros used RapidOGraphs. Heh, now, try to find those, too.
Actually, I had noticed fewer backgrounds in recent strips. They really make a difference, especially if you drop in an Easter egg once in a while.
Greg – try Amazon. Set of 10 Kolinsky sables for about 25 bucks. I draw, but pencil only. And nobody but me will ever see them! I learned early – standing in the corner in first grade – my tiny caricature of the teacher on the blackboard earned me a serious slapping. (It was fairly accurate, but she found fault with the flames coming out of her mouth.) Hey, I was already IN the corner – figured things couldn’t get worse with a little art work!
How can I go on living, without knowing more about the secret plot to keep Westfalia conversion vans out of the hands of…. Or indeed, what a Westfalia conversion van is?????
Westfalia is a German company that converts vans into campers and motor homes. They’ve been making conversion vans since the 1950’s. They’re very upscale and are generally available only in Europe. The conspiracy Hubris is talking about involves preventing people that actually go camping from being able to get one. Kind of like how SUVs are never actually used for mudding.
In the U.S., ‘Westfalia’ is usually an old VW van that the company converted into a camper. Most of them have aged out. Lots of people here seem to think that the conversions were only ever done on VW vans, only in the 60s or 70s, and that they aren’t being done at all any more. Doesn’t take much poking around on the internet to know that lots of Americans would love them a spanking new Westfalia converted van of one kind or another.
I never went ‘mudding’ in my ol’ Suburban, but it got awfully muddy getting to various put-ins and take-outs when I still did a lot of whitewater kayaking.
About 2000 early spring I snuck off to rock hunt on Gold Camp Road one Sunday. It was mud season (spring) and at one of the big turnouts there was a huge puddle and a guy in a jacked up pickup with HUGE wheels came tearing by at an incredible rate and got mud over the TOP of my silver hatchback. Nice orange mud. I got back down and found out no carwashes were open at 3:30 on Sunday afternoon, so I was at the alley with a pail trying to get the orange off the car (and out of the door frames, and it was everywhere) and spouse caught me. So busted. Was so worth the 125# of fluorite and other things I gathered though…
Many thanks to both of you!!!
Yes, Westfalia is a german company that outfits many types of vehicles buses too. They also have their own line of trailers for homeowners and small business transportation needs.
I draw traditionally and Digitally, but I don’t really paint. I haven’t done too much digital pieces lately tho, been working on one for a while tho. x.x Feathers are so hard to do. It’s an OC of a friend of mine.