Kevin Kwong

ghostco:

In an effort to make my ink line a little more expressive, I have been doing a lot more sketching recently and trying to keep things very loose. The looser I keep my sketches, the looser my inks tend to be. I can’t tell if it is a muscle reflex thing, or if having looser sketches beneath my ink lines allows me to be more imaginative on the fly with the brush.

And as I am sure I will get several messages asking me; I do the majority of my sketching these days in Manga Studio EX. It’s a dinosaur of a program, but it allows me the sort of options I like when sketching on layer after layer (not to mention it also has the best canvas rotate feature on any drawing program I have ever used). Also, sketching digitally saves a ton of paper…and since I am cheap and don’t like leaving my house, the less actual material I use the better. Then all I do is print this out and slap it on a lightbox and start working out the final drawing. 

As I try to develop my own practice of working, it’s really good to take note of how some accomplished illustrators have found their own methods. Not only am I a longtime fan of Matthew Woodson, I get inspired when I see that he’s still actively self-reflecting and improving his art.