Mute Sketchbook

Some of these are old and some are fairly recent. I tend to sketch messy because it helps me find happy mistakes and shape out my idea. Plus I like the way it looks. Seems to give the sketch more life.

Great to see your sketches (and you) back on the forums Mute. Theres such life in your sketches with the 'messy' way you work and such dynamism too. I've begun to throw down my ideas in a similar way but I really struggle to refine them toward a finished piece when im happy with the sketch. Any tips on how you begin to move them toward colour and solid tone after the initial sketch? I currently spend ages cleaning them up or simply throw a new layer down and trace. Either way I end up losing all that movement and energy and they become stilted.

Thanks Atto. I usually use a chalk or textured brush with the opacity set to 60-80% depending on the brush because I like the way it looks. Photoshop default brushes will be fine for this. I also have pen pressure set. Then I pick a dark grey for the foreground color on the tools panel and set the background color to white. Doing this makes it easy for me to paint in or out lines by switching between the 2 colors with out flipping my pen all the time to use the eraser. To do this just use the "X" key to switch your brush color between the foreground and background color. Feels more like you are painting then sketching. It also gives it a messy look when you paint out parts of a line. I usually don't really have an idea of what I want to sketch so I start by lightly sketching in guide lines to show the direction I want the face to look. Then I loosely put in the lines to indicate the facial features. From there, if I don't know what I want to do still, I lightly lay in lines to try and build something. I don't focus on detail lines but try to establish the outline of some sort of silhouette and make sure it has weight. From there it's just constantly adding, subtracting, and indicating detail. During the process I make the lines I want to stand out a little darker. I might spend hours on the same sketch because I'm doing multiple versions, trying different things. Also I usually make my brush a little thick and try no to reduce it even when working on small detailed lines. It's best to stay zoomed out to the point where your entire canvas fits on the screen through the whole process. I can show you my process of solid tone from the sketch but I might have to do screen shots to better explain it. I'm still figuring out the process my self, so I don't know how much you would learn from it.

Cool to hear how work up your sketches. I also like the loose but strong presents you get with them. I'm also trying some of these things, as well as working quickly when sketching, so I don't over think things too much. I find that most of time the image finds you, unless you have something specific in mind from the start. ... But I like the surprise images better.

The kunoichi one needs finishing.

Thanks Mute that's so much more info than I was hoping for. I'm gonna try this and see what comes out as I wasn't working as close to the way you do as I thought.
Any info you could give regarding the next step of solid tone from sketch would be awesome.
Thanks for spending the time to answer in such a detailed way

Fabulous. Your sketch technique is really great and brings so much life and energy to the work.

Thanks for sharing Mute! This sort of stuff is just what I need to make me pick up my pencil (or stylus!) and just get sketching again!

And now that the summer holidays are here, that's just what I am going to do!!

These are all really interesting and dynamic. The one that stands out for me is the Harley Quinn sketch. Mostly it's because I am a massive fan of character art that shows heroes and villains in ordinary domestic situations. But, also because I am pathetically single and like how she's posed!....

... woe is me!