www.gilestimms.com

Pen and colored pencil sketches of Santa Barbara.

This is my submission for Illustration Friday’s Momentum topic. The top image was colored in photoshop. The lower image is my pencil layout.

‘In the searing wastes of Uffernau, they say the gods are silent…until they are fed.’

I went on a SketchCrawl today with Zach, a friend and fellow UCLA animation student. We started outside Kerckhoff Hall and then moved onto Wilson Plaza, both in UCLA’s central campus. Of course, the weather was glorious…

Little Jeffie reading the newest Harry Potter book, July 2007.

Life drawing of a man with moustache.
From my 482A Drawing class, at UCLA, taught by Glenn Vilppu.
Fall Quarter, 2006

Here are some photos that show my inking process, tools and work space for my latest pen and ink drawings. There are also some photos of a great Play-Doh penguin that Angie made for me :)

Here I am working on the Ysbryd drawing with Angie’s Play-Doh penguin keeping me company. I’m adding the fine background lines with a 0.1 Sakura Micron.

I start my pen and ink drawings with a pencil drawing to lay out the forms and composition. Here you can see the pencil under-drawing. I use a click-pencil for this part of the process and the red one pictured here is a Niji Grip 0.5mm. The paper I have been using is Bristol Board which is a lovely smooth surface for pen and ink.

After the pencil drawing I ink in the main forms with a small nibbed pen and you can see the result of this step in this photo. The pen to the right in this photo is an amazing Japanese brush pen that my parents bought me for Christmas. It makes the most wonderful brush like marks and the ink flows really smoothly. I love this pen. You can see a close-up of its synthetic brush head below.

Here’s a photo of my workspace while I work on the insect pen and ink drawing. I work on a flat Ikea table that has a white laminate finish (it was really cheap…I think only $30). For the insect drawing I referenced National Geographic’s January 2006 issue that had a great spread on mantids and that helped me with the main character’s design, Trychfil. Usually when I work on a drawing or painting I work on character, prop and environment designs/poses in a ‘design’ sketchbook that I use solely for this purpose. You can see this design book underneath the National Geographic magazine with some designs for Trychfil and the tree branches. You can also see the pocket sized moleskine that I carry around to doodle in. This is where most of my characters usually start. Once I pick out the characters from one of my doodle books I usually play around with their designs in my design book. I try to keep my character doodles pretty simple and I draw them all in pen.

Here’s Angie’s Play-Doh penguin. Hope you like the photos and have a good weekend :)

I finished my graduate school applications and ended up applying to four different places. I struggled for a while with my artist’s statement, but received some great feedback from my brother and Dad — so thanks you two! Also, thanks to my gorgeous Angie for all your support too (and for watching the Brother’s Quay with me)!

Anyway, Angie and I are moving again tomorrow (*groan*), so I probably won’t be posting anything until the end of next week. See you all soon.

Also, above is a drawing of my brother. I drew this some years ago in a medical school morgue surrounded by cadavers. I had the brilliant idea for a painting and somehow managed to convince my poor brother Allister to sit in the morgue with me whilst I drew him as part of a study for my planned masterpiece.

I thought I would change the scale a bit for this one, but it didn’t quite turn out as I had hoped.

Created with acrylic, gouache, coloured pencil and sakura pens
(5 1/2″ x 5″)

Made with acrylic, gouache, coloured pencil and sakura pens.

Created with Sakura Microns, coloured pencils, watercolour, gouache and paper collage.

Here’s a pic of the Sakuras I use :)