The Art of Last Resort

The Art Of

Last Resort

Rachel KeslenskyLast Resort Comicswww.lastres0rt.comTwitter: lastres0rt

Drawing

is harder than itlooks.

Most don’t even

try.

They give excuses like:

Butyou can!

Good Art Takes Practice

From Page #21

(it’s okay if you’re scared)

From Page #37

You Wouldn’t Be TheFirst Artist to Have

A Love/Hate RelationshipWith Their Art

From Page #49

(unfortunately,people got sick

of watching

artists angstsome time ago.)

From Page #50

It’s what spurs us to improve

From Page #58

Over time, it will look better!

From Page #73

Don’t Panic – Just Start!

From Page #82

Many steps go into drawing

even simple characters.

Especially whenstarting from a

blank page.

(you have to start somewhere)

First, a loose

gesture sketch

Then some actual

body detailing

(yes, it’s a chibi)

Followed byfurther detailingif necessary…

Nowto start

Inkingthe

Outline

A thick

silhouettehelps!

This is what

finishedlineartlooks like

Now For

Coloring…

Set aside a layer for

lineart (I color it a

slightly lighter shade of gray to

make it look softer)

Add in

body colors on a layer

underneaththe lineart

I keep palettes for my characters so

colors stay consistent

Main Body

Stripes

Chest/Belly

Flesh (ears)

Flesh (nose)

Eyes(Pupils,

Base Color,Highlights)

Hair

Then there’s

shading(It’s red right

now so I can see what

I’m doing)

And more

shadingfor depth(this layer’s

done in blue)

Yes, it looks GARISH right now.

BUT!

It’s trivial

to tweak the

color and

opacityof your layers.

All that ugly shading looksjust fine now.

There’s a few other things for

polish, like coloring in the eyes and

adding

highlightsto the hair.

But she’s

finished atthis point.

It’s easy now to

imagine what goes into a whole page.

There are more stepsinvolved in a page.

Steps like

Scriptingthe story

Steps like

AddingDialogue

Steps like

SoundEffects

Steps like

Font Selection

Steps like

Pacingthe Pages

These improve

over time as well.

But their changesare less obvious

than the art itself.

Good Storytelling

is near-invisible to the reader. Flaws aren’t.

Mistakesare

inevitable.

But you can

learn from them.

Once you find a

mistake,you can

stop making it.

The more you find, the more you can

stop making.

The more you make, the more you can

stop making.

The only thingleft to do if you want

to be a better artist…

Is toExperiment

The Art Of

Last Resort

Rachel KeslenskyLast Resort Comicswww.lastres0rt.comTwitter: lastres0rt