Commissions

[Peter Wolf]

  Very nice picture.

  One question : On the blacked in areas of the picture ,has the artist used Marker pen or is it an Ink Wash ? It looks translucent as if Indian ink has been used. Its not a criticism , just an observation.     Just curious.

[Buddy]

If you're talking about the Buddy pic it's brush and ink.

I suspect the Dredd pic is the same.

[Peter Wolf]

 
   Having had a second look i can see that now. . The oversized image was good because you can see more of the detail and tecnique involved in it which is helpful if you are trying to learn about it.

  I suppose marker pen is unprofessional.


   Hypothetically ,  will the artist that you have commissioned draw any characters from 2000ad or do they prefer to stick to characters that they know well and are used to drawing ? I suppose it varies from artist to artist in the general scheme of things.

[Pete Wells]

I'm sure they relish the challenge of drawing different characters. Unfortunately I adore Dredd so much that I always play safe!

[Huey2]

On Chris Weston's blog ( I can't do links - sorry!) he's been putting up some of his recnt commissions. I'm impressed by the level of work and detail that goes into one of these one-off pictures.

It's also worth having a look at for the link to "When art commissions go bad!"

[Natsan]

One question : On the blacked in areas of the picture ,has the artist used Marker pen or is it an Ink Wash ?

It's brush and ink. I've yet to come across any black ink that's completely opaque, though obviously some are better than others in that regard. Generally when you see finished artwork in black and white from an artist it will have been adjusted to make the blacks opaque and/or scanned in as a bitmap image.

One of the reviews of Devilchild 1 we had all those years ago insisted that I'd obviously spotted all my blacks with a marker pen. This wasn't the case at all- I was simply using a lesser quality black ink (before I discovered Higgins Black Magic) and had scanned all the artwork in as grayscale, and I didn't know about adjusting the blacks, so the printed artwork in the book looked washed out and 'scrubby'. It was just newbie ignorance rather than *shudder* overenthusiastic use of a permanent marker.

[Peter Wolf]

  Thanks for your replys to my post.Very helpful.The  link called " when  art commisions go bad " sounds good.I dont feel quite as inadequate about my scribbling now.

[pauljholden]

I'm not sure about most black markers these days but, I would generally avoid original artwork that wasn't black indian ink - markers tend to start bleeding and blue fade can kick in - making that lovely page somewhat less lovely.

- pj

[satchmo]

I got a sketch off Evan Dorkin in 1992, the outline he did in marker pen is pretty faded now.

[Peter Wolf]

  I think i am going to stop using marker pens now as well from now on.I have used indian ink but not for a long time but its a much nicer process of blacking in rather than scribbling in marker pen.

[Natsan]

Ergh, I wouldn't let a permanent marker anywhere near my artwork. It fades quite badly, as PJ has already mentioned. The chemicals used in marker pens are quite different to the inks used with brushes.

[dyl]

I use em all the time lol.

[Aaron Smurf Murphy]

I've started using paintmarkers more and more on the really dense black area's of my art work. As long as you use a thick paper grade you get no warping and it simply doesn't bleed or fade once dried.

Finn/Sinn

[Peter Wolf]

  Whats the best type of paper then ? I have been using Daler rowney Lyndhurst white smooth cartridge paper for line and wash.It seems perfectly fine.