It’s illustration time! A while back, I stumbled on this Procreate brush pack by Katsia Jazwinska. It’s meant to emulate the look and feel of alcohol-based markers, like Copics. This really caught my eye, since I’ve used actual, real-life Copic markers (and their much more affordable competitor brands) for while. It’s a medium that I really love, especially when paired with ink. You basically get some of the aesthetic appeal of ink and wash, without having to bring out the water and paints. End of the day, it just a great way to do a quick sketch with a splash of color.

For years I’ve been endlessly inspired by the concept art of both Joe Johnston & Nilo Rodis-Jamero. Their concept art for the early Star Wars films is absolutely chock full of interesting industrial and costume designs. But more specifically, I love their quick and practical use of ink and marker. As artists in the midst of production, their work needed to be clear and iterative. So their choice of medium was key! If you take a look at their work from those films, you’ll notice a great balance between precision and looseness. That’s something that I’ve tried to push in my own artwork, to a lesser extent at least.

With all that in mind, I was itching to see if that brush pack could provide a similar experience to that of traditional markers. I wanted to add color to my digital sketches in the ways I do traditionally. And I was psyched to discover that these brushes did just that! I’ve used these marker brushes a whole bunch since then, starting with this sketch that I’ve shared before:

I’ve been looking at a lot of Rodis-Jamero & Johnston’s old work lately, and that put me in another Star Wars-y mood. While my style and approach is much different than those pros, I really wanted to make something vaguely connected. So when in doubt, create some fan art! And that’s what I did. Here’s my little collection of Star Wars characters using a digital ink and marker method:

Fun stuff! I started with the two portraits, moved to the half body portraits, and then finished up with the full body dance sketch. Not only was it great practice with the marker brushes, but it was also a mini-lesson in posing too. These are definitely “benchmark” sketches for me. And I’ll be carrying a lot of what I learned here into my future drawings.

Also! If you want to see my process (and to show that these aren’t generative AI), here are a few time-lapse videos!

Since 4-LOM is basically bug droid, I warmed up with a little insect sketch first. Then I moved on to the two heads. These really helped establish the overall look before I created the larger drawings.

Having established a style, I moved on to these portraits. They’re chest up, so I didn’t have to worry about posing. I mainly focused on the interesting head shapes. Threw a hand in there too; always important to practice those.

Using the Dengar head sketch I created before, I jumped into these two half-body portraits. I had to think a bit more about posing this time around. And with some hands visible, I had plenty of digits to draw.

And finally, I created this full body portrait. Obviously I had to think a lot more about posing here. In the movies, protocol droids like C-3PO are pretty stiff (they really crammed Anthony Daniels into that suit). But I’d like to think that after an oil bath, and with few screws loose, these droids really move. So that’s what’s going on here. And why not turn a BB unit into a speaker while we’re at it?

And there it is; My little experiment with digital markers! I want to thank Katsia Jazwinska for creating this fantastic brush pack. It’s really motivated me to create some more digital work with a similar look to my traditional stuff. And I’ll have some more blog posts about those in the months to come!

Thanks so much for reading!

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