Clean sketch and my love for the light box


Sketch done of my website mascot. The icon I'm using is from the completed colored version of this sketch. It's not the original rough sketch, but rather a (mostly...I was be too lazy to do a really great job) clean trace of the first -

I usually do pretty rough original sketches. It's mostly to get the idea down on paper and it tends to get messier the more I work on it and tweak things. Then, when I feel I've got what I wanted, I fire up the lightbox (basically, a metal box with a light inside and a thick plastic top) to trace over the drawing on a fresh clean peice of paper. I normally do this really lightly, so I can then ink the piece and erase the pencil lines. I didn't on this one...just worked off of clean pencil lines. (I'd upload the original rough sketch as well, but I'm lazy and don't want to find it and scan it. Maybe for another picture.)

Yeah, it's a bit more work and requires extra equipment, but I think I get good results off it. I have the freedom to change and tweak things in the sketch without having to worry to keep it neat for the inking. That makes a big difference, and I can also trace and re-trace as many times as I need to through different versions of an image to change/keep things I like. More work there, but a lot more room to "perfect" things.

I don't hear a lot of people mention using a light box. I love mine though.