Brian Hartwell

Hi, I’m Brian Hartwell and my main interests in illustration are tabletop games and comics. I find that they give an extra dimension to my work, almost breathing life into it, and they're feasible enough that I can hope to finish them.   I have transitioned to working primarily on Procreate since getting an Ipad, though I also enjoy traditional tools as I spent most of my life learning how to draw that way.  Currently I’m working on a comic book using pencil and ink.  My method for that has been to focus on a broad synopsis of what I want the story to be about and how I want it to develop, then I write with a little more specificity until chapters start to appear.  Once that’s done I’ll be very specific with descriptive text and dialogue so as to have a page; trying to some greater or lesser degree to end with a punch-line while continuing the story. After that I’ll work on some quick thumbnail sketches until I have something I like that seems to fit the page nicely, then I’ll pull out a ruler on my art desk, put in my panels, put in my headphones, then sketch everything in, and finally finish with inking.  After that, I get specific with the next page. The whole process of starting and ending a page can take anywhere from three to six hours, currently.

Much of my imagination comes from reflecting on my youth. I would say that I almost view my younger self as a mentor to me in my creativity.  I have quite a bit of work saved from when I was a kid and sometimes I’ll go back to it and think “Hey, I can do something with that”, then apply it.  I’ll also go back to the shows, games and comics I enjoyed, like Tale Spins or Tin Tin, and think about the reasons why I might have liked those things, and implement parts of them into my projects as well. Part of what makes my childhood imagination so accessible is that I used to tell my two younger brothers stories about Coco and Timmy, and other characters we came up with together when we were in bed.  When a moment was particularly funny, Nathan would ask me to draw it the next day, noting it in my sketchbook, to be memorialized.  I have countless ideas stored away this way.

Contact information: 

Phone: 616 583-2199

Email: hartwellink26@gmail.com