I was browsing the work of an illustrator whose ink wash techniques I greatly admire, for some pointers as to how to do shading on arm and leg joints, when I came across one of his that inspired some imagining on my part.

I did this in Procreate on the iPad Plus…I find myself doing more and more artwork digitally like this. It was easy…I knocked it out in just a hour or so, then went to bed. When I looked at it this morning I saw I’d got the scale of his head wrong in the initial drawing, and that was an easy fix in Procreate. I find I need to put things away for a while so I can look at them with fresh eyes later and see where I get it wrong in the detail. I’m going to keep working on this throughout the day here at Casa del Garrett, then get back to the next episode of A Coming Out Story.

I’ve no backstory for this character…I just spent a few moments visualizing him and then drew him adding detail as I went. He’s a character in some fantasy or science-fiction adventure but I’m fine with not knowing the details of his story as I draw. It gives him an infinite universe to exist in. I did that with several panels in A Coming Out Story episode 19. Three panels in that episode are fantasy imaginings that could be about anything. Consider them the beginnings of stories that could go anywhere.

Yes, yes…costuming in fantasy and science-fiction illustrations and especially in comics can look ridiculously scant. But then again…so what? It’s all wish fulfillment. The stories…the artwork…the sexy characters…