Working out more subtle landscape shading and realistic detail in pencil has been great fun, with a new pipeline for me.
Benefits: More cohesion across a Series. Often with film storyboards, I use the colour to shade the mood/psychology of the scene, but with so many different periods and stories to tell, it's easy to be distracted by colour. Also, you can blend the styles of different artists together more easily. It's less abstract, which can very handy in conveying period detail.
One the other hand, you can loose a little of the loose, organic feel of watercolour, so I try to keep a touch of the organic into my outlines and natural forms. I've always been obsessed with organic lines, which I put down to being raised around the family landscaping business. Too many hours wandering around the perennials.
I love the darkness of a good 8B and 9B, with a 2B and 6B for in-between shades. For gentle layout and outline, the hands-down all-time favorite with any media is the modest Papermate Sharpwriter, which have served me well since about age 8, when they were given to us during standardized school tests.So, after a few thousand frames, pencils are officially one of my favorite new bits of weaponry!
