When to update an online gallery?

Sometimes I'll create a sketch or two, other times more finished artworks, but most of the time I don't add these to my main gallery.

I'm trying to reserve the gallery for my top 30 or so works. It's never easy to know exactly which art to include in my portfolio. How can one judge when a work's quality or relevance trumps another? I've attempted to curate my portfolio as best I can based on personal feelings, but it might be an idea to get an outsider opinion on these things also?

For now I use this Blog to update with other bits and pieces I'm working on. Even on the blog, it can be tricky to know if something is worth posting. I draw little doodles and crappy sketches often, but don't necessarily want to post every little thing I do. Plus I don't want to feel I'm contributing the internet's archive of never-ending, pointless content!

For some reason I think about this a lot! There's so much stuff on the web, so what is actually worth posting online?

To build an audience I'm supposed to post regularly, non-stop

For many companies, organisations and individual artists the idea is to post often to help build an audience. As with brand recognition, you post regularly; supplying a stream of content in order to become a fixture in the the lives of your online followers. It takes time for people get to know what you're about. But, eventually, you build some kind of online relationship, gain a following, receive kudos and potentially generate income.

For independent creators it can be difficult to post regularly by creating enough finished content worth sharing. Attempting to facilitate this necessity can become stressful.

So on the one hand I feel like I should throw up some rough sketches or incomplete drawings, since posting something is considered better than nothing. On the other hand, I don't want to litter the web or my sites with valueless (in my opinion) posts just for the sake of posting. Plus, to be honest, I don't like the pressure of feeling like I have to keep posting updates online.

I wish blogs didn't go out of fashion!

I'd be happy to post more on my site's blog (here) since I have a chance to go into as little or as much detail about what I'm doing or thinking as possible. However 99% of my audiences are mostly on social media - primarily Instagram. Despite having tens of thousands of followers, Instagram's format isn't really suitable for more than a square image post and a line or two of description. I don't like it.

One thing I do know is, unless this blog was to get more attention, it's hard to justify spending too much time posting here as often as I'd otherwise like. Therefore, for now, I don't.

Crying Robot Tears

While I don't intend on Blogging every other day, and while I have decided I don't want to post absolutely every sketch or mark I leave on a sheet of paper, I did want to share this a piece I'd been wanting to rework for a few years:

The Photoshop screen shot above shows the original concept on the left, and the update on the right. I had this idea to create a narrative scene showing the sad robot guy cradling his dead owner/lover/?, while facing a gun to his head. What lead to this event I wonder? What will happen next?

One for the Blog

It's a little sketchy and unrefined but I think I'll leave it as it is for now. Not all ideas or art needs to be polished to perfection. For those works, they can live here in this blog.

From time to time I like to tidy up my portfolio

Never an easy task to decide which works stay and which ones go. There's usually at least one thing I like about every image I create. Or one thing that demonstrates a different skill or technique I'm capable of. Originally my portfolio on this site was only ever going to be around a dozen pieces, but my gallery layout allows for more without looking over the top, so decided to populate it with some extra works.

Bye Bye Ninja Girl

I've decided to remove this ninja girl commission I did back in 2013. I don't hate it, but the anatomy and colour use some improvement. It's a little basic compared to some of the more recent stuff I've been doing. I'll miss the bold red background and the flower boarder. Maybe I'll use those elements in a new piece some time?

Hello Harley

I'm replacing ninja girl with the Harley Quin Fan art I did this year in Markers and Ink. I've since sold the original to a customer in France.

Also a more monochromatic Skull/Wolf/Girl image I created for chrome/mirror prints (which can be ordered in the Shop) This one was created in Photoshop CC with my Wacom Cintiq tablet. That now makes 31 portfolio pieces.

[gallery columns="2" size="large" ids="3437,3436"]

This one was a commission of hip-hop mascot 'Dirteee'. Although pretty basic, I had an original reference design to work from, and the brief was basically to draw it in my own style. I like to mix my style up a lot- drawing semi-realistic comic characters one week, tattoo art the next, then going back to my manga roots after that. And even within the manga sub-genre, I vary styles from time to time :)

As always, starting with a sketch and then moving on to colours once the client approves the design:

[gallery size="medium" type="square" ids="3352,3353,3354"]

[caption id="attachment_3351" align="aligncenter" width="704"] Final Result[/caption]

If you'd be interested in commissioning me to create artwork of your character, a portrait, mascot etc, leave a message or contact me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

[gallery link="file" type="square" ids="3315,3322,3323,3318,3321,3316,3313,3314,3317,3320,3312,3319"]

Here's some progress shots of my recent frog girl illustration. I originally shared these on my Instagram account. At first this was just going to be a grey + one neon colour marker-only piece, but decided to give it the full digital colour treatment also :) Any preference on which version you prefer?

If you'd like to own it, I've added exclusive signed prints of the digital version to the site's Shop.

New, Original Comic Art / Manga Art now Available

I'm having a little clear out and decided I'd offer up some of my original A3 pencil and ink drawings for sale. Check out the shop to see what's available :) I'm pricing them all reasonably inexpensive for now and can post them worldwide. Some are works featured in my How-To books such as Digital Manga, so you might recognize a few of the designs if you already own a copy of it. 

I always think it's a good idea to hang on to originals to be able to look back on and have drawings dating back to 1993! At the same time, I thought I could spare a dozen or so and make room for newer work.

These days I'm working purely digitally a lot of the time, so traditional work will always be limited. Let me know if you'd either be interested in commissioning me to produce original artwork or would like to see more original art sold on this site.

Thought it was about time I got back to drawing some fan art. Genuinely a big fan of the manga / anime Hajime no Ippo. I love so many different styles of art, and even within the manga niche, there are a million ways to produce a cool looking image. This time I wanted to try out a chibi style :)

[gallery columns="2" size="large" ids="3157,3158"]

Who is Ippo?

Ippo Makunouchi is the main protagonist in the manga and anime series "Hajime no Ippo." Initially, Ippo is a shy and timid high school student who endures bullying. His life takes a dramatic turn when he is discovered by Mamoru Takamura, a professional boxer, and saved from a group of bullies. Takamura introduces Ippo to the world of boxing, where his innate determination and work ethic shine.

Under the mentorship of Kamogawa Genji, the coach at the Kamogawa Gym, Ippo undergoes intense training to become a formidable boxer. Known for his powerful punches and indomitable spirit, Ippo quickly rises through the ranks in the boxing world. His signature move, the "Dempsey Roll," becomes synonymous with his fighting style.

As the series progresses, Ippo's character develops, and he forms deep connections with fellow boxers, trainers, and supporters. The story not only revolves around his journey to become a world-class boxer but also explores themes of friendship, resilience, and the personal growth that comes with facing challenges in and out of the ring. Ippo's story is a compelling narrative of an underdog transforming into a boxing sensation, capturing the hearts of fans and inspiring them to overcome their own obstacles.

My latest tutorial book The Artist's Guide to Drawing Manga is now available for humans to buy.

It primarily covers basic to intermediate techniques for creating manga style characters and artworks. I'd been wanting to create a new replacement to my first book The Art of Drawing Manga, and managed to revamp every aspect of it. The written content was doubled, the artwork quality increased, the tutorials and examples more relevant and the book's layout upgraded. The Artist's Guide book was designed to compliment Digital Manga- a book which details the digital process in more detail.

Why do I need another how to draw book?

Every artist has a different take on how they create art work and every teacher has a different approach to breaking it down and explaining how it's done. I hope that aspiring manga fans can read through the book, gaining new insights, inspiration and understanding of how it's done. Or at least, how it can be done. If you've never picked up a how-to-draw book before, I'd recommend checking out the Artist's Guide. I want to help people become awesome artists and I'm happy for anyone to email me about the book's contents if they need extra help or explanation :)

Instead of learning manga, shouldn't I be learning fundamentals to improve?

The book's ultimate aim isn't to force students to replicate stylized versions of people. It's main aim it to ask students to consider things like: using guide lines, basic shapes to plan proportions, how to break down complicated images into easier to understand sections, to sketch before refining details, to think about how to visually communicate by adjusting a character's pose, expressions, actions, clothing and also hone in on what makes the anime style so special and unique.

Yes, spend time life drawing and studying the real world. Learn to draw all sorts of things- not just manga, but if you want a book to motivate you to try out some artistic ideas in a style you appreciate, or even if you just want to draw a few manga characters for fun, consider the Artist's guide to be your manga-flavoured medicine.

Why should I buy your book and not just use online tutorials?

I have a lot of faith in the book... I know what I'm talking about, having created manga inspired artwork for years for dozens of clients. Check out my portfolio- I'm teaching readers how to achieve a similar vibrant and professional look to their artwork. I'm no stranger to creating 'how to draw manga' books- I have refined my process of communicating my knowledge over the last decade and put together a package which will advance one's ability much quicker than if they were to try pulling tutorials from various sources online.

Art still takes a ton of time and practice to get better, but if my 1000s of hours of instructional book-writing experience can bring a reader's skills up a notch or two for a reasonable price, I'd like to think that's worth it.

Online tutorials can be a bit hit and miss. I spent days researching what's already online. And while there is some excellent stuff, it can be hard to find and there's also a lot of confusing, poorly written instruction out there. All these tutorials are scattered across the web in various locations while The Artist's guide to Drawing Manga houses 124 pages of info in one place. - That info has consistency. It's written by the same author, so you know you wont be getting confused by trying to follow different ways of doing things from different teachers.

Even if you read a lot of tutorials and have other art books, there's always room for another. I'd be very surprised if a reader didn't learn at least one new, useful technique from the book. If that one technique saves hours of time and trial and error, isn't that worth paying for?

And if you've read it already, let me know what you think in the comments below :)

I'd been wanting to create a new series of girl face artworks featuring a monochrome+single accent colour palettes- these are the results. Please with out they turned out. Not sure about the Pikachu one though, but perhaps still an idea worth testing? They gave me an excuse to use Photoshop a little differently that I usually do- to effectively paint digitally using a variety or brushes rather than produce my more typical digital airbrush colour effects with a generic low-flow round brush.

See below for 'Hand print', 'Spidey', 'Hannya', 'Skull', 'Biohazard' and 'Butterfly'.

I spent the weekend adding two new projects to Benkrefta.com's Projects page.

The Artist's Guide to Drawing Manga, which is my new tutorial book due out in two or three weeks time, as well as my G7 Leaders character art - promotional illustration I worked on for Save the Children. Like all the projects on the site, they're more or less quick overviews or case studies of some of the client work I've completed over my artistic career which I hope visitors will find interesting :)

Both of these took way longer than I'd anticipated. Some days consisting of 16+ hour stretches at the computer to get things done before deadline or sleeping over at the studio, so it's a relief to have them all done and dusted. Here's one of the G7 illustrations I produced and given a black and white manga screen-tone overlay:

It had been a while since I drew any fanart. I did the pencil line art for this Death Note pic a few years ago, but only recently got around to inking and colouring it. Time permitting I'd love to draw up artwork for dozens more of my favourite anime :)