Make your own sketch pads

Instructables is a great site if you like to make stuff like I do. As I tend to hoard paper to draw on and had a ton of loose paper lying around I was pleased to find this Instructable : make a duct tape scratch pad.

This works really well and is perfect for making sketch pads, any size or paper type you want. I added cardboard covers to mine and folded the duct tape over the top to make them stronger. And if you do use thicker paper you need a lot more glue.

I made three sketch pads with this method and am running out of paper now so time to start hoarding again.

Nic Klein Takes Us Inside His Process

Nic Klein shows his process for painting Viking, a new series for Image comics in this interesting little article. He must work really fast to do two of these a month. I really like the mixture of an acrylic monotone base and digital colours.
I wrote about Nic a while ago on this blog.

Sketch magazine

Blue Line Pro art supplies have a magazine called Sketch about all things comics, they have some good articles on drawing amongst other things, although I think they have too many adverts.
There is also a very good forum with sections on pencilling , inking, colouring and Tips & tricks.

Kevin Chen demos on ConceptArt

There is a quite an old thread on the Conceptart.org forums chock full of demo drawings by Kevin Chen. These sketches are amazing, you can learn alot about drawing the figure just by looking through this series. There are 3 pages: Page 1, page 2, and page 3
Kevin Chen is a top figurative teacher and concept artist, there is some of his other work here. I wish I had a teacher like this!

New hub page

I have written a new article on Hubpages called 3 Essential things to do if you want to learn to draw well

Hobbit paintings by Justin Gerard

Justin Gerard is an illustrator I had not heard of before I came across his blog where he has some fantastic paintings illustrating the Hobbit. He works on paper with watercolours and then continues the pieces digitally. I think he manages to get the best of both techniques this way when you see the great results.
He has posted the process of the Battle of the Five armies and explains why this scene is so exciting to paint. If you are a Tolkien fan like me you must see these paintings and even if you're not they're still stunning.
There is also an interview on the excellent Tor Sf and fantasy site.

Right or left brain quiz for artists

This quiz made me chuckle as the some of the questions seem a bit obvious, but I tried to answer honestly and got a score of 70 % in favor of being right brained. This was surprising as I thought it would be the opposite, so maybe it's quite a clever quiz after all.
Have a go and leave me a comment with your score, I would like to know what sort of brains read this blog!