Helter Sketcher #007 - The Lab

Ink & Improvisation for a sketchbook splash page.

Welcome back, err… WELCOME!

Before we get to the weekly sketchbook page, I would like to give a huge shout out to all the new lovely Genghis Con 47 friends I met this past weekend! It was our fourth year having a booth at Genghis Con 47, and it was amazing! Thank you for stopping by and chatting about all things games, dice, and nerdy!

To all my new gamer subscribers – welcome welcome!

My lovely booth at Genghis Con 47, Aurora CO. New lights set up! Woot! See you all again next year for Genghis Con 48.

The Lab, a splash page

A tradition has been started of naming and decorating the inside of my sketchbooks. The idea came from James Gurney who names each of his. He says it’s a great way to tell them apart and give them character. I agree. This is a new Strathmore 400 series, Toned Tan Mixed Media Art Journal (That was a mouthful). The end papers of the journal are a nice medium cream paper, with a slight tooth. Inspired by the subtle cream, I opted to do a classic color palette of Black + 1 Color on cream for a traditional children’s book feel.

The LAB, title and splash page for the new journal of Art experiments.

Graphic designer by trade, I’ve been in love with fonts and hand lettering for most my life. I’ve been craving doing hand lettering lately and playing with fountain pens. Here I wanted to rock two fountain pens, and make a mini illustration/custom font of each character. Basically I wanted to have fun and cut loose!

I started sketching each letter with a .5mm UNI kuru toga mechanical pencil. Then I went in and inked all the heavy lines for each form with a Sailor Fude fountain pen. The fude really did all the heavy lifting here. The word “fude” comes from the Japanese term meaning “brush.” It’s a severely bent/angled metal tip pen that makes huge swings in thickness depending on the angle you draw at. They are inexpensive and fun! Cannot recommend them enough.

The black line art was done in Platinum’s Carbon black ink. It is a favorite among artists for it truly is waterproof and easy on fountain pens. You can ink anything and then go back with watercolor, or whatever medium you like, and the lines will not be disturbed. I once dropped a drop off coffee on a page of writing and didn’t find it til an hour later. Coffee drop was still wet. The ink was perfect.

In terms of theme I went letter by letter and just kind of winged it. I had a general “children’s storybook” idea to keep it cohesive and give the page some guardrails. All I knew was, I wanted each letter to be completely different from the others, for maximum variety.

Once each letter/scene was done in black, I went back and added all the orange as an accent. A TWIBI Eco fountain pen, loaded with Noodler’s Pecan ink, was the weapon of choice. The secondary color makes for a nice background to bring it all together, but not so dark as to overwhelm the heavy black letters. I was trying to add color but keep readability.

All in all, I had FUN! The ideas worked off each other as I went and a little story of a Wizard doing machinations emerged! Is he in the tower? Is he conjuring a defense spell!?? Why is the dragon helping the siege? Why is his belt so loose!? Who are these A-holes who dare to lay siege?! Do they not know to knock? Make an appointment? Sheesh! To be continued?

Thanks for reading along. Hope you’re inspired to go draw and cut loose yourself. Now go play in a sketchbook for an hour or two.

You won’t regret it. – Sumrow & Rey

PS: To see the first true page in the journal, check out Helter Sketcher! No. 3 - Blue Dragon . The dragon is just asking for directions I swear.

Stay tuned for another dragon in next weeks Helter Sketcher!.

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