This quarter, I've been teaching a "Heroes and Villains" drawing class at Hawken. We've been discussing types of heroes and villians, power levels, some history, along with a ton of drawing. One of the first things I try to teach is basic shapes and under-drawing. There's a thought when you start drawing that every line has to be perfect. I'm trying to teach structure.
One of the things I do to teach that is to give out some of my much-beloved Col-Erase Blue pencils. I get the students thinking in terms of blue lines and dark regular pencil lines. That way they start seeing the structure, and it gives me a chance to correct some things before they get too far along.
I also try to demonstrate some advanced techniques every once in a while. That's not so much for them to duplicate, but just showing them the larger art technique that's out there. The first time I heard about inking with a brush and understanding it was at art school. I want to introduce them to those methods a little earlier so they know why their drawings don't look like the finished ones they see other places. I know 10-year old me was confounded by trying to copy All-Star Squadron pages, wondering how they drew so small and their lines looked so interesting.
In our second-to-last class, I had them draw a hero or villain, their choice of their own character or an existing one. Then, I took their blue line drawings and inked them. I made as few fixes as I could, but just enough to show them what they're capable of down the road.
Here are three of my students' artwork. They signed their pieces, and I've scrambled their last names if they used it just because, well, it's the internet, you know what I mean. Click on any of them to see them larger.
