Been a slow slow slow development towards what my new studio space looks like. Functionally, I’ve moved to entirely digital, which has meant the focus of the space is around digital drawing. But I still want to have the option to pick up some paper and draw on it.
I have a great big a3 inkjet printer I’d love to get rid of, but I need (JUST IN CASE!) and a Alex set of drawers first for A3 / A2 paper (well, just about A2) which is just a little too big. And this chair is no longer fit for purpose. BUT I have a bookshelf (which is currently half empty) and a new shelving system which I can add to as I see fit (though it turns out the top is so high up I can’t even reach it, so it’s now where I put my Objects of Desire. Though, tbh even seeing them requires me to stand on my tip toes.
I do miss the old old studio, you know… the one before we had kids when I had this VAST room that I could fit three tables in, and still have too much space. *sigh* maybe one day. At least now we’re in a house rather than a flat, there’s a possibility one day I’ll get a bigger space by putting a decent shed out the back… but I suspect my wife will veto that long before I put roots down. Still, this isn’t bad. Not bad at all.
I’ve had a room to work in since around 1997, when my wife (then GF) and I moved into our three bedroom flat. At that time, I had a massive room that I used to work in – it was so big literally half the room was just … empty space. The other room ended up as a storage room.
Then we had one kid, and then another. And so, I still have a room for working in, but now it’s tiny.
The thing is, up until a few years ago, I used to refer to this room as “My drawing room” which of course, needed more explaining – “no, not the nice room behind the sitting room, it’s the room I draw in.”
Anyway, now it’s a studio, and it has been for a few years. So anyway, thought I’d give you a tour since it’s about 80% more tidy than usual…
Ok, this is the exciting sight that you’ll see on your way in.
In the distance there you can see my Mike McMahon print of Dredd. The folders (bit hard to see here) on the floor in front of you contain a bunch of original art, I tried to move away from just shoving art into drawers and keep them in folders, but they all ended up on top of each other. Ultimately I make too much art. Whatcha gonna do…
What’s on the wall, Paul.
The white board keeps me on track for projects (or I pretend it does, really I need to figure out a perfect system and this isn’t it)
Mounted on the wall are my Chris Sprouse page and a Cully Hamner, gorgeous clean superhero art. Cully’s page is amazingly 1:1 to print. I dream of that sort of precision.
(And there’s a page of mine rather rubbishly just sitting there)
I oughta get more stuff on the wall, really.
I want to believe…
The UFO in the top left is a left-over from when this room was my eldest son’s nursery… about … uhm… 14 years ago (yikes!)
The Judge Dredd page here is by my old Pal, John McCrea – I want all my friends to give me original art all the time, but this was the first time I’ve ever asked someone to just .. GIVE ME THAT PAGE. And it’s because, well, one it’s by John so that means a great deal (and it means more that it was a gift, albeit one I demanded…) but it has Justice-1 on it, which was Dredd’s spaceship in the Judge Child Saga, and an abiding memory I have is building that space ship out of computer Punch Card, with my Uncle Paul when I was about 10.
Shelves stacked with an assortment of nonsense – the black shelves at top where gonna be home to a small, but cool, Batman animated series collection of toys. But they now sit, unloved, in that big white box. The nude model is turned to save my kid’s modesty who used to take great delight in pretend offence when they saw his little plastic todger.
Other notable cool beans: Bike from Akira, Dredd statue based on the McMahon dredd (in greyscale) the Chris Samnee Daredevil original art book (he draws very big…) and a collection of Dredd reprints that, I think, contain my work.
Back to the drawing board
The drawing board, cleared up for working traditionally, after a few months of digital work it’s nice to sit back down and remember how much fun drawing on paper can be.
Back to the digital drawing board
There’s not much organisational thought in my shelving process, but these two shelves have SOME specifics about them. At top the 2000AD collection. Big books o’ 2000Ad stuff. (Though not always) then below it shop talk, how to draw books. I’ve read a fraction of them. It is a constant reminder of my inadequacies. (I spelt that word right first time, and it somehow alleviate those feelings of inadequacy!)
There are two printers here: a brother dcp6690CW – an A3 scanner/colour printer which is essential to how I work – I can scan A3 comic art and blueline print pencils for inking. And beside it, a Brother Laser Printer HL2350-DW which is a nice little b&w laser, that can print double sided. I use this for scripts (and I intend to use it for a little bit of self publishing. Maybe)
27″ Wacom Cintiq – my primary digital drawing tool. All hooked up to a mac mini (which is sat on a bunch of boxes of original comic art, that I don’t ever expect to be opened again until I die and my great great grand kids try and figure out what kind of person I was. It won’t help them)
Also Amazon Echo, which I love. Much better audio than the mac mini’s rubbish little internal speakers (though they’re better than my last PC which didn’t have any speakers at all)
Wall of Shame
This corner is superbly unorganised. Just an assortment of stuff. Ugh. I should tidy it.
And finally…
That corner is such a hot mess.
Oh yeah, up in the top right – you can just about see — a Batman Animated The Dark knight figure and a Batman Animated The Demon. They both rock, but they’re staying in their display boxes rather than the big white box of doom.
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