Santa brought me something very special for Christmas 2011, yes I'm the proud owner of an iPad 2! I was a little sceptical about their worth beforehand, but I have to admit, I am now completely sold on them.
One of the reasons for this is a very helpful App named Sketchbook, which lets you use your iPad like a sketchpad, I've been having a play with it ever since I downloaded it just after Christmas, and I think actually have found a way to speed up my Illustration process, certainly the line art element of it!
It really is an impressive piece of kit, with a range of brushes and a layer tool so you can build up the artwork. I use an iPad stylus pen that I bought as well in order to sketch the lines up. The line strength is fantastic and it follows the movement of the stylus over the screen accurately.
I've decided to upload my first piece using Sketchbook and the stylus pen. I wanted to draw a character as I've been experimenting more with drawings of people rather than landscapes. I chose to draw one of my favourite actors at the moment Ryan Gosling, ever since I saw the film drive about 4 months ago, I've been a little bit obsessed with his films, call it a man crush! I've pretty much watched his back catalogue, minus the notebook! But I'm sure I'll end up seeing that at somepoint! I wanted to capture that cool look he had in the film drive, so I worked from various photographs I had found to sketch this piece out. The whole image has been put together on the iPad, initial lines and colouring. Although I think I'll export my sketches and complete them on my mac, as colouring using Sketchbook was rather time consuming.
I'll be uploading new sketches as I complete them, so watch out for new artwork hitting this blog soon!
Below I've screen grabbed some process shots.
