Materials

Here's some of the different material / products I use...as far as brushes this isn't all the different types and sizes of brushes I use, but the two brands I use. From left to right: Tuff Stuff Eraser stick. This is basically like the plastic eraser photographed below, but can be sharpened like a pencil to erase tighter areas and create highlights. Staedtler mechanical pencil with .003 lead. I vary what hardness of lead I use in it, but it's usually either 2H or at softest HB. For my brushes I almost exclusively get them at United Art and Education. I'm not too particular about the quality of my brushes, because as I'll get to eventually I use paint that would probably hurt really expensive brushes. Plus thats just added stress.... But I either use United Art's own brand of brushes (red handle) or Black Silver's by Dynasty. The cool thing about the Black Silver's is that all their brushes are the same price no matter how large or small ($2.69 if I remember correctly). I also use Berol Prismacolor Verithin pencils for sketching. I start off with Non-Photoblue to roughly sketch things out, and then tighten up with Indigo Blue.

Next up, the type of paint I use is Liquitex Basics. These are around $5 a tube and I only use primaries - Napthol Crimson, Primary Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, and Titanium White and just mix whatever colors I need. Sometimes a painting will call for a Cobalt Blue, but other than that I like to just mix it. Over the years working that way has taught me immensely about color. But I just love the consistency of Liquitex Basics.....I can't stand the waterier (is that a word? Spellcheck says it is) paints.....

Here's some examples of acrylic paintings I've done with Liquitex Basics.

For my watercolors I use Dr. Martin's Concentrated Watercolors. Same with the acrylics I only use primaries - in this case True Blue, Lemon Yellow, and Scarlet Red. I was introduced to these by Mark Hazlerig, one of my illustration teachers at CCAD. They are more like ink and you can do some really crazy effects with them. For inking I used to use microns but have switched over to using a brush and Dr. Martin's Black Bombay. I used to use other brands of bottled ink, but Bombay by far is the most consistently black ink I've ever used. Solid as hell.

Also real important for using Dr. Martin's inks is their 30 well palettes....easier to mix colors with and you won't waste your ink as much. Even when it dries like seen in the picture you can re-activate it with a little water....

Here's some examples of Dr. Martins pieces I've done over the years...they're cool because they work well tightly and loosely....if you ever use them though, be sure and spray fix them with Krylon UV Fixative as they will will fade quickly if left in direct light for long periods of time.