Where Ideas Go To Die.

I talk about thumb-nails nearly every other post, but as far as I can remember have never actually posted any. So here’s something a bit special this week. I have a kind of sketchbook that’s only for thumb-nails (both sequential and pin-ups) which I doodle in relentlessly to draw and come up with new ideas. I know a lot of artist don’t thumb-nail, but I’m a big believer in it. I honestly think you need to try and sketch an idea in 10-seconds, before you spend 10-hours trying to draw it. Just get the barebones of the concept and design down, before the idea goes. I can’t remember who I heard say it, but I remember someone saying something like “you can draw in 30-seconds, something you couldn’t in 30-hours.”, which is very true. Thumb-nails ain’t pretty and mine are very rough-and-ready. They were never really meant to be seen, just used to work off of, but I’m a fan of them. So with that in mind, I scanned a page from my most recent thumb-nail sketchbook. If you go zooming in, you can probably see the thumb-nail sketch for Dracula Descending in there some where. As well as many ideas that just didn’t make the cut. Those ideas are for alternative-dimension Andrew, as he flies around in his space-car with lots of money in his pockets and hot chicks sitting on his lap (God, I hate that guy.)

I’ve been putting it off for a while now, but this week I started on the internal pages of my Graphic-Novel. I.e. all those pages in a book that aren’t sequential or pin-up artwork. There’s usually a handful in every Graphic-Novel, but people rarely pay any attention to them or notice them. That said, I still want mine to look awesome, even if no one reads them. In other words, I’ve been wearing my graphic-design hat this week. Designing the book-jacket will be the big battle I’m building up to.