Another little paint study...like last time, it was done in Painter, and I focused on developing the light forms out of the dark. If there's three things I can take away from all this new stuff I've learned about painting (and still applying!) it would be these three things:
1) If you think your values are pushed enough, push them some more. Chances are you're lingering too much in the halftone (middle value), which is why your picture looks muddy. (I'm still struggling with one.
2) Don't paint objects. Paint shapes. (This rule alone has gone a long way for me in making me aware of how to paint stuff. Thank you, Richard Schmid.)
3) Don't paint/draw what you know, paint/draw what you see. This is something that I think a lot of beginners (myself included,) don't realize: If you think you know how to draw an arm, I guarantee you that you're forgetting 70% of the visual information (landmarks, how the form rolls, angles, shadows, etc.) Maybe after years and years of drawing it it'll become committed to memory (and even then you should still double-check once in awhile,) but until then, ALWAYS use reference to build your visual vocabulary. It's funny how often this gets overlooked.On a side-note, I'll be in Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con this weekend! As usual, I'll be selling sketches and issues of Border Crossings, as well as some watercolor pieces! Stop by table 336 (I'll be across the guys who make the terrific book Owly,) and say hi to me, Chris, and our tablemate Eric!
Or Frabel, as they're really called. It's a creature from Border Crossings (I've done sketches of them before,) done in watercolor and ink. I've been creating some small, 5 X 7 artworks for Heroes Con to sell, and this will be one of them.
Two studies done from still-life objects in photoshop. I've been thinking lately about ways to improve my skills, and what better way than to go back to basics? So here's some relatively simple shapes.
Like any other artist, gestures are an important exercise I keep up with. It's a great way to warm-up and get your mind into the right mode of thought, and it helps you hone your ability to not make your drawings suck or be as stiff as board planks.Even though doing gestures of everyday events and people (parades, malls, etc.) are a vital thing, for warm-up purposes it doesn't quite work out. There's not many options, to be frank, that can let you replicate the timed sessions a class or life drawing session gives you, beyond using a stopwatch and some self-control.That is, of course, until I found out about irfanview. I knew about it for sometime, but I didn't know it had a pretty damn extensive slideshow feature. This, coupled with the terrific photos from Character Designs, makes for an great way to get into a warm-up routine (To me, at least, it beats posemaniacs out of the water.)So to tie this all into some new art to post, here are some gesture sketches I did using this set-up, as well as a little dragon sketch I did the other day (if for no other fact than "How to Train Your Dragon" is still fresh in my mind.)
Some doodles out of the old sketchbook of a sea monster...the face was a blend of these two fish I saw on Discovery Channel's "Life" last Sunday...
Geez, at the rate I'm posting here I'm in the running for longest time between updates...Well then! Time for some art!
Chris and I last week were at Megacon last weekend (what with it being not more than 30 minutes away from me,) and we had a great deal of fun! It's not as artist friendly as some other conventions (Read: Heroes con,) but like any other one it always ends up being entertaining in one way or another. We had issue 01 of Border Crossings printed and on sale there, and we were able to sell quite a few copies (enough to cover parking, at any rate, so yay!)There's gonna be some brand-spanking new art up here soon, and to kick it off, here's a warm-up doodle I did one evening before sitting down to ink. It's some sort of lizard fellow, near as I can tell.
Well! It's been a looong time since my last post. This year, the holidays were extremely busy for me, and this has been about the first time in a long while where I felt like I can at least take a minute to breath and catch some of you wandering readers up to date. I think I can be safe to promise that I don't intend to have this long of a lapse again for a long, long while.Border Crossings, for those of you who don't read it regularly, has kicked into Issue 02 last fall, and has been steadily updating. Not every page has been a winner in my eyes, but overall I think it's shaping up to be a stronger issue than the last one.
Here's one of a few sketches I did of Venetia as prep work for the second issue. There's about a two week gap in the timeline between the events of the first issue and the second, so I felt that by that point Venetia would have tried to get herself into comfier clothing. She still retains part of her wetsuit, but you can also see that she's started to adopt the Island's culture. By the time I started drawing her in the comic, she acquired some sort of dreadlock hairstyle, capped with metal bits.
Here's some other random sketches as well, of various things that had just popped into my head over time.
As Chris and I move to update the site and churn out issue 02, we still made plans to make sure our weekly content update continued. This little illustration of an Annelid is one of such updates that we've done when I was unable to update a page (between issues, or previously, when I was moving. Never for anything else!)
I wanted to talk about this piece because it's an example of happy accidents. Originally, it had a lightsource from above illuminating the creature. It was alright, but it felt like the drawing wasn't working to the best of abilities. So I took it out of Painter, moved it into Photoshop, and began playing with some layer modes. After some weird result of difference and/or exclusion, the light source became inversed, giving the drawing a much needed boost.
If you're ever stuck on a piece, (especially a digital one,) sometimes all you need is to change something dramatically on it, whether it be the color scheme, the lighting, etc. Often, happy accidents emerge which push you past the block, and gets you moving again.
Today, I sit down and begin thumbnailing the pages for Issue 02 of Border Crossings. This isn't the first itme I read through the script though. I received it a few weeks ago from Chris, and gave it a quick read to get an idea of the story and what I might have to draw. Without spoiling much, there's a lot of great stuff in it, and I think this issue will be much better than our first one (which I'm still proud of.) I've taken a lot of guesswork out of my process over the course of the first issue, so I expect things to go smoothly this time around.
When you read through a script, whether it be for comic books, or in preparation for storyboards, the more times you read through it, the better off you'll be. The biggest benefit you can have is it'll cut down on continuity errors throughout the story. I like to spend about a day reading and re-reading through the script, taking breaks occasionally to read the news or other articles online, look up some reference depending on what the script may call, and of course, draw. I'll start thumbnailing about halfway through the day, and revise it one or two times before I start doing my roughs.
The next couple of posts will be Border Crossings-centric, with some sketches and other goodies from the next issue. Stay tuned!
Here's an update on the Toadbat, now with color! Right now, the color scheme is being glazed over the grey values. You'll notice that it muddies the colors a bit, but that's fine, as right now this is just to get a general idea of color and lighting. Stay tuned!
Also, here's a little warm-up I did this morning. I was reading through the illustrated edition of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (by David Chauvel and Enrique Fernandez) and I forgot how incredible Fernandez's work is in it. So this is a sort of practice in that thick paint style of his. Not nearly as nice, but it's always good to do stuff you wouldn't normally tackle...
