I’ve always wanted a studio with natural light, so when my wife Valerie and I went searching for a new house in 2012, I knew I’d found the place I’d call my creative home.
Located above our two-car garage, it was the ideal space to escape a noisy family with two active boys. I'll start my day at 9am going through emails and messages for about 30 minutes, then it’s time to get down to the business of drawing.
I set up two workstations in my studio to help me tackle both digital and traditional work. I’m about 80 percent digital these days and at the core of my setup is a Wacom Cintiq 27 QHD tablet, which has been going strong for the past nine years, and I'm thankful for its reliability. I flank it on the left with a vertical 24-inch monitor for reference images, and just above it's a 32-inch 4K monitor mounted to an ergo arm, which allows me to swivel it round to my traditional drawing area as well. That’s often playing YouTube videos as I work.
I have a Røde mic and another ergo arm for my webcam, making it the perfect place for video calls or streaming for my Patreon. My webcam is actually a Google Pixel 7 phone, which for the money is a really decent quality camera. Just behind me is a reclining loveseat that’s perfect for a little reading corner, and a place for my cats to sleep during the day. On the left wall I have a large magnetic whiteboard that I use to pin concept art for my current comic project.
Next to my digital station is the drawing table. Most of the time it's occupied by one of my cats, so I keep a blanket on there to make it a little more comfortable for them while they keep an eye on the neighbours. The drawing table can be raised and lowered, but the majority of the time I just keep it flat.
I have a good collection of pens, pencils, brushes and inks at my disposal right next to it and typically the area can get quite messy. Further on to the right of my drawing table is another table that houses my Bluetooth speakers, large-format scanner, and a large-format art printer.
Above is a massive wall calendar to keep me aware of looming deadlines, and next to that and just down the hall are two large bookshelves that I use to store all my favourite graphic novels, comics and art books. I've managed to cram something into every inch of this space and I’m proud to have built such a perfect creative sanctuary for myself, which I never take for granted.
(Love Derek's setup, then read our guides to the best drawing tablets, best artist monitors and a roundup of chairs to ease back pain to improve your own studio.)
Artist in residence: Derek Laufman
This space has the important giants calendar so my looming deadlines are not easily missed, as well as my large-format printer and scanner. Usually this area is a catch-all and I have to dig out a path to use the equipment.
I use this corner for gathering dust from my office, displaying my Sean Galloway Hellboy and Batman statues, plus a few other collectible prototypes I’ve developed over the years.
I was in search of the perfect drawing table and noticed that comic artist Daniel Warren Johnson had just what I was looking for, so I zoomed in on a photo of his workspace and was able to locate the brand of it. A little stalkerish, but it got me a table!
A blanket handmade by my talented wife that acts as the ideal spot to catch a catnap during the day.
The Pumpkin Mage is an original character that I designed and later developed as an animation pitch that didn’t go anywhere.
An illustration of Sir Duncross, the main character in my comic series Crimson Fall.
A comfortable, quiet little nook to put my feet up and catch up on a stack of graphic novels. My cats also like to sleep here sometimes.
A page out of my wordless graphic novel BOT-9. Inspired by my love of Hayao Miyazaki movies and an urge to challenge my storytelling without words.
This content originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine, the world's leading digital art and fantasy art magazine. ImagineFX is on sale in the UK, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and more. Limited numbers of ImagineFX print editions are available for delivery from our online store (the shipping costs are included in all prices)
