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Cartoonist/comics educator Ben Towle likes to take up half the year in alphabet themed art projects; once it was monsters then animals. This time he drew 26 different musicians in a project called AlphaBands. All 26 are up now, he explains and though not everyone was a hit single, it was also a technical exercise.

Also as usual, though, I used this exercise not just as an excuse to draw regularly, but also to learn some new tools. All of these were drawn and colored in Digital Manga Studio on my Surface Pro 2. I also started investigating some of Ray Frenden’s custom Manga Studio brushes. The CCR illustration, for example, was colored with his watercolor wash brushes and you can see some of his dry media brushes creating charcoal-like effects in some of the later drawings. If you want to try some of these brushes out for yourself, you can buy them from his shop here. They’re well worth picking up.

 

1 COMMENT

  1. I always like reading about drawing techniques. I have been drawing Brittle Hill with pencil, and inking with marker. But in the current issue I started doing some drawings in Photoshop using a beat-up old Wacom tablet. It’s a brand new world, and I’m having fun drawing in it!

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