Originally uploaded by kms007
Brandon McKinney, who penciled the mind-blowing “The Army of Two” graphic novel for EA (in comic shops and book stores now!) provides the pencils and inks for this poster (the only thing I drew was the head on my character) for an upcoming Sequential Arts club meeting at the Art Institute where we both teach. I added the colors and text. Brandon is an incredible penciller, and it was a blast to work with him on this piece.
-Krishna
Originally uploaded by kms007
I attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in the early to mid ’90s. It was there that I got my first big break as a cartoonist for a newspaper – The Daily Beacon.
The Daily Beacon was (and still is) the official UTK student newspaper, circulated every weekday. My comic strip, “WiLD LiFE” was published 5 times a week for the Fall semester of 1993. While cleaning up my office, I came across many of my old drawings from this period.
Each comic was drawn on bristol, penciled, lettered – then inked. No computers – all 100% analog – using a Pentel 0.5mm mechanical pencil and Microns. The panel you see here was the very first strip of my 4 month run. I worked on the entire run of strips during the summer of 1993, after working full-time as an intern (co-op) at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Chattanooga, TN.
Anyhoo, the main characters of the strip were Max (the rat), Oz (the rabbit), and Jana (the gal – not quite sure what animal she was…). Seeing this strip was a trip down memory lane.
Enjoy!
-Krishna
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
The slideshow above shows how I go about “building” a character. I always start with the basic shapes and the line of action (a line that basically defines the character’s primary movement), then gradually add details in. By working with basic shapes, it becomes very easy to spot mistakes in proportion.
Too many beginning artists start out drawing characters in outlines – tracing the outer contours of the form. This will result in a character that looks flat. Other beginning artists like to start out with a lot of detail. The energy spent on adding details, early on in the design process, can be potentially a waste of time if the characters proportions aren’t working.
-Krishna
