LIFE DRAWINGS FROM PHOTOREFERENCE #199: Clip Studio Paint vs. analog-media sketch sets! (Patreon)

Anyhoo, behold a pair of very different sketch sets, one drawn in Clip Studio Paint for the PC and the other a short-lived return to the hand-penciled analog media of 2017 yore, both of which are based on video stills and both of which also ended up mingling failure and success.

First off, a sketch set drawn in CSP via my often challenging Wacom Cintiq, based on paused frames from a video I was referencing for a "damsel in distress" rough; I noticed some interesting stuff going on with the model's rib cage and belly, and hence decided to do another ab-centric set based on selected stills:

Sigh.

I used PC CSP's default Design Pencil brush, which works great for rough sketches on comic pages as little pressure is required to make lines with it; however, as we can see above, the PC version is vastly inferior to the iOS (iPad) CSP Design Pencil in terms of emulating graphite tones. I still learned a li'l somethin' somethin' anatomy-wise from drawing the sketches, but was deeply annoyed by the brush's inability to simulate pencil rendering.

My next set, four days later, returned to the ol' analog pencil-on-paper medium I used for daily Life Drawing back in 2017. I had to abandon this approach after my beloved 5B 2mm pencil leads, bold and soft as they were, began putting too much stress on my drawing hand and arm during my beloved high-contrast rendering. 

Wellp, earlier this year I stumbled across some promising substitutes for the 5B leads I once used, which Berol Turquoise had ceased manufacturing over a decade ago. The new hotness is some 8B(!) 2mm pencil leads I stumbled across online, which are even bolder and softer than my dwindling stock of Berol Turquoise 5Bs; in fact, I now pencil solely with the new 8Bs (as seen on the newer Emerald pages, fo' example), and have ditched my once-beloved 5Bs entirely.

So, I wondered if I could resume Life Drawing with these newer, softer 8Bs, and drew the following sketch set based on stills from a dance video with really interesting lighting:

...and, lo and behold, my g-d inner forearm was burning with very familiar pain and irritation after only 30 minutes. So, nope, looks like I can't resume analog-media Life Drawing again after all. Back to the digital, looks like—or the iOS CSP version thereof, at least.

FWIW, though, I did pick up a thing or two from sketching off the paused video, so you might see some similar (digital) dance-based sketch sets down the road.

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?