There are probably too many inspirational artists to cite here but I took a while to study a couple and clearly the ones I like most use traditional drawing methods. However have you been to an art shop lately? Boards, pens & washes are really not cheap. And with my rate of error simply something I cannot afford as a hobby.

This has lead me to take the decision to work in Photoshop from basic sketchbook ideas. So the toolkit is as follows, with the only real notable piece of kit being the Wacom tablet:

• PhotoshopThere are others but I know Adobe and the brushes are excellent from settings for heavy black inks to working in fine pencil styles to firm up initial scans
• Zap BooksI go through quite a few of the A5 wired ones, recycled from London Graphics Centre. Only reason I use this brand is the size isn’t too big or small, perfect to leave in my bag for spontaneous sketching
• Staedtler PencilsCurrent bunch are from Rymans – the finish isn’t important as lines are scanned, resized and traced later
• Canon 1240u ScannerNothing too flash, as long as I can get up to 600 – 1200 dpi. Once images are in Photoshop they’re resized up to commercial graphic novel dpi and tracing begins
• Wacom Bamboo TabletThere are lots of models out there with this being the smallest and cheapest while keeping sufficient sensitivity