I have been reading a really neat
interview between Matt Cordell and Phil Stead. In it, Matt talks about his exploration of materials and line quality. I have found it a fascinating read.
They have written/illustrated a children's book together - definitely one to check out!
"Line quality and line character has been my thing as an illustrator from
day one. And it’s been a huge learning curve. Still is. I’m very hard
on myself about it. Trying to figure out what kind of line I want, how
to get to that line, and being satisfied with what I end up with. I’ve
played around with some other things too. For one book,
Gone Fishing,
I used about 10 different sharpies, all of which were in varying states
of drying up. I used a different sharpie for different parts of a
drawing, depending on the relationship I had with that sharpie. I
started out doing this, just to get a feel for sketching with a heavier
line, because I knew the end result was going to be a heavy line. But
then I liked what was happening with these sharpies, so I used my
sketches as my final line (with a tiny bit of photoshop doctoring)."
