The Art Of Last Resort Rachel Keslensky Last Resort Comics www.lastres0rt.com Twitter: lastres0rt

Drawing is harder than it looks.

Most don’t even try.

They give excuses like:

But you can!

Good Art Takes Practice From Page #21

(it’s okay if you’re scared ) From Page #37

You Wouldn’t Be The First Artist to Have A Love/Hate Relationship With Their Art From Page #49

(unfortunately, people got sick of watching artists angst some time ago.) From Page #50

It’s what spurs us to improve From Page #58

Over time, it will look better! From Page #73

Don’t Panic – Just Start! From Page #82

Many steps go into drawing even simple characters.

Especially when starting from a blank page.

(you have to start somewhere)

First, a loose gesture sketch

Then some actual body detailing (yes, it’s a chibi)

Followed by further detailing if necessary…

Now to start Inking the Outline

A thick silhouette helps!

This is what finished lineart looks like

Now For Coloring…

Set aside a layer for lineart (I color it a slightly lighter shade of gray to make it look softer)

Add in body colors on a layer underneath the lineart

I keep palettes for my characters so colors stay consistent Main Body Stripes Chest/Belly Flesh (ears) Flesh (nose) Eyes (Pupils, Base Color, Highlights) Hair

Then there’s shading (It’s red right now so I can see what I’m doing)

And more shading for depth (this layer’s done in blue )

Yes, it looks GARISH right now.

BUT!

It’s trivial to tweak the color and opacity of your layers. All that ugly shading looks just fine now.

There’s a few other things for polish, like coloring in the eyes and adding highlights to the hair.

But she’s finished at this point. It’s easy now to imagine what goes into a whole page.

There are more steps involved in a page.

Steps like Scripting the story

Steps like Adding Dialogue

Steps like Sound Effects

Steps like Font Selection

Steps like Pacing the Pages

These improve over time as well.

But their changes are less obvious than the art itself.

Good Storytelling is near-invisible to the reader. Flaws aren’t.

Mistakes are inevitable.

But you can learn from them.

Once you find a mistake, you can stop making it.

The more you find, the more you can stop making.

The more you make , the more you can stop making.

The only thing left to do if you want to be a better artist…

Is to Experiment

The Art Of Last Resort Rachel Keslensky Last Resort Comics www.lastres0rt.com Twitter: lastres0rt