Draw! #35 (magazine review).
‘Draw!’ covers three types of audiences. For those who want to break into the illustrating world and get some art tips, fans who want to see how their favourite artists do their work and the rest just to admire the work. Editor Mike Manley points out in his introduction that today, the skills of a comicbook artist and illustrator can be applied in many more jobs.
With the first interview with Donato Giancola, the artist explains how he and some 300 different art studios in New York have open days where they can show their wares. Seeing how Giancola creates his own art is equally fascinating. It does break a myth that blue line can’t ever be scanned although I think he should have pointed out that you need to raise the gain for it to be registered.
Jerry Orway shows how he prepared and drew his 5 pages for Action Comics # 1000. As he points out, while you scribble the design, it is important to recognise what they scribbles represent. Looking at how his illustrations evolve, once the design is sorted, you can then focus on the details.
The interview with George Pratt is even more extensive and long and should be required reading for any student commercial artist in working for a client and providing what they want rather than what you want to do. It reminded me of an incident when I was much younger for a different reason and that the client isn’t always interested in how you get the final result that they needed. Likewise, there is a definite need to understand the history of some of the artists, especially as one of his students had never head of Frazetta. That makes me feel old. You can always add to your knowledge but you have to have some in the first place. Speaking of which, something I hadn’t known was J. Muff’s ‘Moonshadow’ series was coloured mostly by other people. Looking at Pratt’s work here, it is clear that he’s an expressive artist and that there is a lot to be learnt from his technique.
Mike Manley takes the hot seat from Bret Blevins this time by pointing out spending time doodling or practice drawing for its own sake is useful, especially away from commissioned work. He even points out keeping your early work is a good way to see how far you’ve come over the years.
Finally, Jamar Nicholas has a look at how razor nicking into the ink of an illustrated work as a technique. One of my pages of X-Men originals has Terry Austin doing this over some John Byrne pencils so I found it useful to learn some more about the technique and that some correction pens can do a similar technique. It does make me wonder how long before it can be replicated digitally.
As always, ‘Draw!’ is the idea magazine to pick up a lot of art tips and thoughts from artists. You’ll be very hard pushed not to learn something from every issue.
GF Willmetts
October 2018
(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing. 82 page illustrated magazine. Price: $ 8.95 (US). ISSN: 1932-6882. Direct from them, you can get it for $ 7.61 (US))
check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=133&products_id=1364
