Tank Girl

Sigh, one of my favorite comics from back in the day. Yes, the stories were zany, but it was Hewlett's art that I was truly drawn too. The obsession continues today, and he remains a major influence on my drawing. That said, this was an exercise in drawing one of his characters without evoking his style, yet still trying to capture the spirit of the character. I have drawn her in the past and they always came out as an imitation of his style, instead of a drawing that was truly mine. I think this is closer to a more personal approach.

Just for fun I scanned this at various stages so you can see the pencils, inks, and final colour.

I've been goofing around with roughing stuff out in yellow pencil, it's kind of hard to see while I'm refining the drawing, but when you drop it into photoshop and change the mode to grayscale, the yellow drops right out leaving a clean, inked drawing. It disappears completely, unlike the supposed non-photo blue I have used occasionally in the past.



Here's the ink. I'm starting to feel more comfortable inking with a brush, but I am still not convinced that this is the final direction I want to go. There are elements of pencil and pen that I really like that I cannot capture with a brush, perhaps once I gain more control. That said, I love the loose quality of line you can get with a brush, it really helps maintain the life and spontaneity of a drawing. I think most of my inking with a pen has killed the drawings to some extent. Perhaps they aren't completely dead, but in the very least they ended up brain starved zombies, craving my cerebral cortex as a mid-afternoon snack.