Gimme gimme gimme color

For a few weeks now I’ve been trying to incorporate color into my sketchbook. I’m only using a few colors; everything but microns seem to bleed through the pages, so I’ve been adding color line work to my inked sketch pages. My favorite inking pens are now hands-down Faber-Castell PITT artist pens; I’ve been using the sepia pens, and they have real indian ink and I love them to pieces. The lines go down smoother, and it’s overall much more enjoyable than microns or even copic multiliners, which I’ve used in the past. The price range is somewhere in the middle of the microns and the copics, but in any case I don’t mind splurging on these beautiful, beautiful pens. For color, I’m still using mircons; the color copic pens are still far too pricey. If I do a big important project, maybe I will spend a bit, but for now microns are suiting me fine.

The last one is my favorite. Queenie is being developed for a small graphic novel project. I’m still working out her character, but I think FIGHT STUFF FIGHT EVERYTHING is pretty close to what I’m going for; at least I’ve got the ultra-confrontational bit down pat.

In other news, I’ve been in Pittsburgh for a week. It’s finally getting a bit more manageable in terms of heat, thanks to a string of thunderstorms that I keep avoiding by a hair’s breadth. I haven’t gotten as much work done as I’d like, thanks to a lot of facilities closing for last minute renovation. Thanks to this, I’ve abandoned the video editing portion of my job for the time being and dove headfirst into the archival part of the gig; lots of VHS, a few beta and U-MATIC, lots of misleading labels, and LOTS AND LOTS of dust. It’s not even normal dust, like you get when you don’t touch a bookshelf for too long. No, this dust is a sticky and cloying substance that gets into your lungs and sticks to your hands and makes everything feel grimy, even after you’ve washed your hands 4 or 5 times, and have taken a shower, and keep rubbing your hands together hoping the sticky crap will stick to itself and fall away instead of continuing to stick to you. This dust has been in that cabinet for years, and it has evolved, and it is terrifying.

I meet it in battle again on Monday. This time, I will be prepared; I’m bringing gloves, bitches.

<3