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Digital Comic Art — An Introduction

artpersonal

Late last year, I found an art class I was interested in attending, being held at the City of Glasgow College. It was to be taught by Russell MacEwan, so I gave him a quick Google to find out more, and became an immediate fan of his work.

Unfortunately, due to Covid, the class was moved from in-person to online, meaning a weekly Zoom call with Russell and my fellow students. Tonight was the first class, an introduction to the following six weeks. During the three hours, we discussed drawing lines, mass, and form; we were encouraged to spend time learning the human figure, to study comics, and to draw from life; and we spent some time drawing thumbnail sketches of some comic book panels we had to hand.

I have a few sketches from the evening, but two of my favourites are these thumbnail sketches, both of which were done within a couple of minutes, and were inspired by (1) IDP: 2043; and (2) Superman: Red Son.

An image showing a panel from a comic book, and my attempt to replicate it

An image showing a sketch of two figures facing away from each other

An image showing a panel from a comic book, and my attempt to replicate it

I was worried that I'd be both the oldest student, and the least talented artist. To be fair, I was probably right, but it was a good mix of ages and skill levels, and it felt like a judgement-free zone.

I've another 5 weeks of this, and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) seeing some improvement. If there's any to be seen, I'll post it on here!

All in all, it's not a bad way to spend a Tuesday evening.