Where They Draw

Mike Holmes

I shared a studio a couple years ago with some truly great Halifax-based artists (Kate Beaton, Alexandria Neonakis) but they moved away, so I went back to working from home. My studio takes up about a third of my living room - the bedroom’s bigger, but there is really something to be said for keeping your workspace out of the room where you sleep. I’ve only been in this apartment for about a month, but I like to get settled and set up as soon as possible after a move - I don’t like a lot of boxes lying around.

I built these Tetris shelves out of older shelves. I’ve got all the books arranged - there’s an art book section, an influences section, one that’s for my friends’ books, and a little Jeffrey Brown section.

Ella - she shows up in a lot of my drawings.

Mostly I just use a mechanical pencil with non-photo blue leads, Prismacolor fine line markers, #1 sable brushes and ink on smooth two-ply bristol.

More detail of my toys. The Fucked Up print is a cover that I drew for alt-weekly The Coast, and Damian from the band signed it for me.

My desktop image is from Team Society League, an awesome webcomic. The mug with all my pens/pencils is the one object I have kept with me throughout my life - I call it the Bear Mug for some reason that only makes sense to four-year-old me.

WEBSITE

twitter - @mike_holmes

Kristian Ujhelji

costa koutsoutis

I have a Sakura mechanical pencil I use to start everything, I got it when I first started making comics. I primarily use a mix of brush pens (Pentel, Zebra, PITT) to ink, doing little effects and cross-hatching with disposable pens (fine-tipped PITT, Sharpie, etc), whatever’s cheapest.

We actually have an office in the house we live in now, it’s our library/cartooning/painting space.

I use a portable architect’s drafting table set up on a cheap Target desk as my workspace, set at a slightly-less-than 45-degree angle.

My primary tools are left on the desk, but the other backup pens, grayscale pens/markers/brushes, and fat Sharpies I’ll use are in coffee cups on top of the minifridge next to me.

I edit comics in free and stupidly-simple photomanipulation software like Paint and Irfanview on my Dell laptop. I’m so archaic it’s insane.

All comics are done and scanned on this little combo device, it’s worked pretty good for me so far all these years. A larger flatbed scanner would be nice, but hey, I’m a man on a budget.

Screenprints of the comic JESUS HATES ZOMBIES signed by writer/creator Stephen Lindsay, a USAGI YOJIMBO sketch by Chris Schweizer, and a sketch of STARLORD by Chris Samnee. My wall of inspiration, so to speak…there’s more art, it’s just not put up.

Tanxxx

Website

Josh Bauman

In May, 2011 Johan Potma, Wolfgang Reimers, and I formed The Cheese Mountain Tragedy, a gallery and studio space in Berlin. Our goal was to have an open studio where we could work, chill out, and display our work. 

This is my corner of the studio. I draw most of my comics using a 2010 Mac Pro, a Cintiq 21 UX, Manga Studio EX4, and Photoshop CS 5.

My printing is done on an HP Photosmart Pro printer. I do my inking on a heavily modified children’s desk I found in my apartment building’s garbage room. My traditional tools of choice are Zeichentusche india ink, a #0 Rosemary & Co sable brush, and whatever watercolor paper / bristol tickle my fancy. 

Caffeinated Toothpaste, my daily diary comic

Cole Closser

Here’s me in my old space — th’ big, beautiful apartment that I loved.  I got a fireplace an’ a window.  I got a bulletin board and a cartoon rat.  I also had a cat (real one).

This is my space now.  The apartment’s a quarter the size, smells like dirty water, has no windows, and is located in the cold, barren north.  They do not allow cats.

That’s a great big Hamilton drawing table.  Made in the USA close to a century ago. I got random reference pitchurs on th’ walls — family photos — stuff I like.  Gurlfriend photos and Nancy and Sluggo go on the table.

I pencil with an Alvin Draft/Matic 0.5 pencil and soft lead.  Depending on what I’m working on, I’ll ink with a cheap brush, G-nib, Gillott No. 170, or a Pentel Pocket Brush.  I usually letter with a Micron 08 or a Hunt B5 1/2.

I use Speedball Super Black ink, black crayon, and Pro White on vellum Bristol.  I thumbnail and sketch in Moleskine notebooks.  I also love my Ames Lettering Guide (covered in masking tape, because it’s invisible on carpet), my T-square, my 24-inch C-Thru ruler, X-Acto blades, kneaded erasers, and my Virgin Mary key fob.

That red cowboy mug is my all-purpose drinkin’ cup.  I enjoy coffee, Coca-Cola, or Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey whilst I am working.

Bless yer hearts.

www.coleclosser.com 

Sam Perry, Performance Space The Waffle Shop

Pat Aulisio

downstairs at cha-cha’razzi

welcome to cha-cha’razzi, the best under $100-rent artist collective and sometime venue in south philly! its an easy 7 minute bike ride from my house to here, thats my stealth black bike in this pic. this is a general shot of the downstairs area (its a lot bigger with 2 studios and a hallway filled with music equipment hidden behind the walls). this includes the drum set where i practice my blast beats as breaks in between drawing.

common area
this is the 2nd floor common area. there are 6 artist studios on the 2nd floor, mine being behind the crushed red velvet curtains. that shelf behind the trash can is where i keep my comic tabloid collection and various unused paper products.

this is the 2nd floor view from the balcony hallway. ive taken over the table to the left as my comic making area with the paper cutter and long staplers.

my studio
this is a ‘wide’ shot of my studio. its a narrow cubicle like area filled with paper and comics. i literally made the walls and the L-shapped desk from scrap wood i found. directly in front of me is a wall of inspiration, mostly postcards and sketches i’ve picked up at cons and art shows. notice the unopened official box brown hobo wedding whiskey sitting on a weird power outlet thing.

left desk

this is where i haphazardly lay about all my pages in progress and keep my inventory.
i also have about half of my comic library here (the other half being at my house). that bookshelf actually shelfs books 2 rows deep. under the desk is various boxes of my books, regular sized comic long boxes, and post office boxes with mini comics, mini-mini-comics, and over-sized comics.

right desk
this is generally what my desk looks like most the time. you can see my CD’s since im apparently one of the few people left that doesnt have an mp3 player. also notice the beer with the blue label is newbold beer by pbc, its a beer named after the neighborhood cha-cha is in, drink local!

tools
here is a general overview of the stuff i use to make comics. i love the brushes with blue handles, so much so i dont even know the name of them. i use a compass way more then expected to make comics. the precise v7 rolling ball is the pen i used to ink the majority of my comics. white ink gelly rolls are also a secret weapon i use when drawing. also  notice my favorite tool, the lightbox which all tools are on, this box was actually taken from a hospital and was the kind used to look at x-rays.

Website

Spleenal

I’m otherwise known as Nigel guess.

I have what you might call a “normal job” which kinda soaks up most of most days.

A lot of evenings tend to get eaten up with my second job (which is drawing, so it’s not that bad) and other stuff so the only real time I tend to get to my self is the commute to and from work.

I usually write and do pencils on the bus…

The roads here in England are terrible. You can sketch and write maybe but inks and letters are a no no. The roads are full of potholes.

I work at A3 but you can’t really draw at A3 on the bus. It’s too big what with there being a seat right in front of you. So I work draw on A4 landscape. Which makes my page grid four panels high that way I can have the top two lines on one page the bottom two on the next page.

Spiral bound is best for this as you can properly fold what you’ve done so far under what you’re going to do without breaking the spine.

Most of the drawing and pretty much all the inking and lettering goes on the metro train

The ride’s quite a bit smoother so you’re taking less of a risk with pen, though there are still some crappy bits of track.

There’s more space too.

The pencil is just an ordinary HB and mostly I use a fountain pen a .7 iso rotring and a .2 rotring.

I tend to spend an hour a day on the train and about 40 minutes on the bus so it’s a nice chunk of time.

http://spleenal.blogspot.com/

Noah Van Sciver

My workspace is in the corner of my living room and to an outsider might
appear to be pretty messy, but I know where everything is.

This is a pile of in-progress stuff on the little table on the side of my desk. The pagewith the flowers is actually redrawn from the endpapers of Vanessa Davis’ Spaniel Rage book.

Here’s a Chicken strips drawing that I taped on the wall above my desk at some point last year.

I’m not a painter, but I mess around with it a little.

These are two pages from my recently completed book The Hypo.

finally, here’s a box of comics I need to sell at some point. We’ll see how it goes.

Website