I’m a firm believer that working regularly in a sketchbook is a really beneficial practice for artists. I know there are some really phenomenal cartoonists who pretty much only draw when they’re working on an actual project, but I’m just not at that level skill-wise. For me, that’d be like just showing up for the game, but never showing up for practice–and I for sure need all the practice I can get drawing-wise.
That said, I don’t get to work in my sketchbook nearly as much as I should ideally. I just ran out of pages in this particular sketchbook which I started at the end of June last year. It’s an 80 page book and I draw on both sides of the page, so that comes out to just a couple of pages a week. On the other hand, though, that’s all pure sketchbook noodling. I thumbnail my comics on loose printer paper.
Anyway, just for fun here’s a gallery of a handful of pages. You can see that in addition to my usual subjects of made-up faces, hands, and clothing/drapery, I’m trying to work on using black for shadows (AKA “spotting blacks”) and on getting better with the human figure/lines of action. Those are two areas that I’m definitely going to continue to work at in my newly-started sketchbook.
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