Here is what you will need;
- An Android device, phone or tablet, Apple might work as well, but I don't use Apple products so do not know
- A stylus (more like a few of them)
- Sketchbook mobile which is free (Pro is preferred)
- And time
So how does one get skilled in drawing... by having a passion for it and by starting somewhere. And the easiest place is to find something you love and appreciate as an art form and begin. In this case, Hellboy is not only a great reference character, but is also easy enough to draw and paint.
Did I mention time... time is important. It's also important to know that you first drawings aren't going to be great. But don't let that get you down. Picasso was a horrible painter when he first started, so was Van Gogh, Monet, hell even Jack Kirby sucked at one point in his drawing career. The point is, if you want to draw, make the decision to learn to draw and don't stop until you produce stuff you are happy with. Even after that, keep drawing.
I draw every day, for at least an hour. I make time when my wife is watching one her shows, laying in bed before sleep, at work on my lunch and break, waiting at the doctors office. Sometime I am able to get several hours in, but I try to get at least one hour in each day.
So now that you have everything you need the big question is where to start. The answer to that question is an outline of the character. The reason you want to start here is because outlines are easy to fix when it comes to mistakes.
And you will make many mistakes. Trust me... I make a ton.
In this case I spent about two hours on the outline in order to get the mutton chops, hair, horns and chin properly proportioned as well as that damn gun.
Your outline doesn't have to be perfect but you need to be happy with it. If your not happy with it, keep erasing and trying again until you are. If you click on the image on the left you will see the outline is not perfectly matched lines all connecting. This just needs to be the basic shapes.
When you are done with the outline, make sure to save. You are going to hate yourself when you lose several hours of work because you forgot to save. As a matter of fact, software and hardware crashes happen, so my recommendation is to save and save often.
Once your outline is complete the real work begins....
...And the real work is coloring. In the sample on the right, I spent about 40 hours coloring this image, by hand on a 10" tablet screen. Now I didn't do this in a single setting, as I do have a life and my arm probably would have been dead.
No, this coloring took me about two and half week to finish, and hour here, two hours there, five hour there... Yes, I can draw for five hour and not get board. But those are rare.
Using a green and orange palette with a little deep red and some browns thrown in I began coloring the highlights, then shadows and finally the mid-tones.
I wanted a painted look, so I wasn't too careful with the colors making sure the each color was perfectly placed. My focus was generalized color placement and making sure all the white from the background was covered because Hellboy doesn't have white on him. I also focused on the making sure the highlights and shadows were correct as they add depth the image.
To begin this step you need to create a new layer in Sketchbook. Then move the layer under the outline layer, make sure the new layer is highlighted and then begin coloring. This new layer and its placement under the outline layer allows you to add color, erase color or whatever you need to do without messing up the black outline. Once you are done with the coloring, save the file.
If you click on the image on the above-right, to see the larger size, you will see that the coloring is very blotchy looking. Well that's where the next steps comes into play....
...blending/shading. I am showing you the layer of blending by itself so you can see what is truly happening, image on the left.
I am not covering the entire work, I am simple sampling from the colors that are there and blending the edges of the colors together.
This process was close to 25 hours. Yup... 25 hours. That is because of the complexity of the color patterns used for coloring Hellboy in this work. Other works I have done have only taken me as little as 30 minutes to blend, but the style of the image was drastically different.
So for the blending, you want to create another layer, over the coloring layer, but under the outline layer. This will allow the blending to reside over the coloring layer, affecting it's look and colors, but will be under the outline line so those black lines remain intact.
When you are done with the blending, make sure to save.
And finally you want to add an interesting background, because Hellboy on white just doesn't have the impact as a subtle splash of color behind him does.
In this step you want to create another new layer, and move the layer under the outline, coloring and blending layers.
Then paint away.
Try different brushes, different sizes of brushes and different colors. In the case of this piece I used three different colors in the background and about 4 brushes at various sizes to get this textured effect. You can see the larger version of the image by clicking on it. There you will see the different colors, textures and sizes I used.
When you are done with the background, make sure to save.
And this is how to get started drawing your own comic book. Practice and practice often. Before you know it, you been able to whip out 22 pages of panels in no time and will be well on your way to a completed book.
Until next time... Be prepared to eat through a ton of styluses drawing on a tablet.
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