I've been running up a bunch of art lately because awhile back someone (I forget who) made a mild complaint that I wasn't uploading much here. (There's a good reason for that, actually, in that most of my art these days are comic strips and comic pages that get uploaded elsewhere.) I was also thinking about testing the waters for opening myself to commissions, and thought I'd start with a handful of badge art tests, just for the heck of it. Since nobody's really paying much attention to it, judging by the number of views, perhaps it's a moot exercise.

And, since nobody's paying much attention, I might as well chat a bit about my approach to drawing these things. (I know it's all old stuff to the artists around here, since you guys go through all these steps in your own way, but it's my page, so please excuse me for a little indulgence.) So, let's break down this last test...

I start off with a light pencil sketch. It's not easy to tell from the JPG because I amped up the contrast in order for the pencils to show up a bit darker, but this was done with a very hard lead, which shows up very light on the pencil. This is to allow me to get the form and attitude without getting too dark and messy. I have to ease up on the grip a bit so that I don't gouge into the paper. I know some folks prefer to use non-repro blue pencil for this stage, but, having tried that in the past, I'm not comfortable going that way. I like something I can erase later once the image has been finished in ink. I make a few minor corrections and some minor detail, but this stage is primarily for getting the composition right before going to the next stage.

The original image size, by the way, is a four-inch square; as such, there won't be a lot of busy detail going into it anyway.