I ART FRAZER IRVING

When I started this book I was fresh out of the wonderful world of the Simping Detective which ran in the Judge Dredd Megazine (the sister title to 2000AD) where I had employed a method of digital painting that used black and white painted over a grey midtone background. It’s a bit like drawing on a brown paper bag, where the bag covers all the midtones and the black pen/white paint deal with the shadows and highlights. It’s different to working onto a light background because in those cases One is merely apllying layers of shade, whereas here we have to consider the actual placement and use of white itself.

It’s a fun method to use for sure, and there are many interesting things one can do with it, but it is far removed from the basic skills one uses when sketching with a pencil on white paper.

I do think i kinda burned out on that method during this book. After all, if I wanted a bright panel i had to actually physically paint all that bloody white in, when in normal circumstances one just leaves those areas blank. It was time consuming (for me) and involved shifting gears between thinking in black and thinking in white, which is not a good idea when One is doing 18 hour days churning this stuff out.

However I do see some fine panels that worked well with this method (most drawings of the monster in fact) and revisiting it for the first time in years has reminded me that I really should try this again sometime…to see if I’ve picked up any new tricks since then.