Jan 2010
"Conspiracy Theory" progresssion of a digital painting
January/29/2010 07:27 AM Filed in: Digital Painting
When I first got a Cintiq in 2006, I wanted to see what I could do with it. My process usually involved drawing on paper or art board. If the art involved inking, that would usually happen outside of the computer as well. But, I’ve taken to finishing work on my computer. The first thing I wanted to try was to take an older sketch of mine and see how far I could push it using the Cintiq. A Wacom Cintiq is basically a monitor that you can draw on. The Cintiq is pressure sensitive and durable. I’ve had mine now for 4 years now and have never had a problem with it.
Here’s the sketch I wanted to try. I drew these characters with no reference. One of my favorite sketching habits is to clear my mind and just draw. I try and let it flow and one day this is what I sketched on paper. I took this sketch and scanned it on to my computer.
.
Here I was having fun with drawing some tone on the characters. I toyed with the idea of stuffing the big guy with money.
Once I got what liked, I began inking on the computer. I’ve tried this countless times with a Wacom Drawing Tablet but it felt so right drawing on a monitor. I fell in love with how natural it felt. I kept pushing the art and adjusting things as I went. I decided to make them part of a club or secret society. I gave them skull pendants and that lead to the skulls and dirt. I put a mouse and a snake in the art as well.
I was having so much fun I wanted to keep going with it. I starting working on a frame for the portrait. They look to be posing for a portrait so I worked on that before I gave them color.
Then I laid in layers of color over my tone. Made shadows, wallpaper and pushed highlights. I gave the mouse a bone. lol I was able to have the tone be on a separate layer than the inks. The color too, but at certain points I would flatten some layers to make it more manageable to work with. Like when in needed to blend my tone with my color layers. Below is the end result.
I see some things that bug me about it still, but I think it turned okay. It was very fun to work on and I learned a few things and thats a big part of art. I made this art in 2006. The finished digital work is 16 x 20 inches at 300dpi. I mostly worked in Corel Painter, but I also used Adobe Photoshop.
Here’s the sketch I wanted to try. I drew these characters with no reference. One of my favorite sketching habits is to clear my mind and just draw. I try and let it flow and one day this is what I sketched on paper. I took this sketch and scanned it on to my computer.
.
Here I was having fun with drawing some tone on the characters. I toyed with the idea of stuffing the big guy with money.
Once I got what liked, I began inking on the computer. I’ve tried this countless times with a Wacom Drawing Tablet but it felt so right drawing on a monitor. I fell in love with how natural it felt. I kept pushing the art and adjusting things as I went. I decided to make them part of a club or secret society. I gave them skull pendants and that lead to the skulls and dirt. I put a mouse and a snake in the art as well.
I was having so much fun I wanted to keep going with it. I starting working on a frame for the portrait. They look to be posing for a portrait so I worked on that before I gave them color.
Then I laid in layers of color over my tone. Made shadows, wallpaper and pushed highlights. I gave the mouse a bone. lol I was able to have the tone be on a separate layer than the inks. The color too, but at certain points I would flatten some layers to make it more manageable to work with. Like when in needed to blend my tone with my color layers. Below is the end result.
I see some things that bug me about it still, but I think it turned okay. It was very fun to work on and I learned a few things and thats a big part of art. I made this art in 2006. The finished digital work is 16 x 20 inches at 300dpi. I mostly worked in Corel Painter, but I also used Adobe Photoshop.
iStockphoto.com January Vector challange "Retro"
January/17/2010 11:22 AM Filed in: Vector Illustration
I’ve been contributing lightly to iStockphoto.com since 2005 but over the past couple of months I’ve made the commitment to be a stronger provider. I’m exclusive with them for the vector stock art that I create. I’ve never submitted any uploads to the vector challenges they sponsor, but I thought I’d give it a shot. The theme is “Retro” this month so I designed a retro comic book cover.
I tried to include the classic EC comics elements from the “Weird Science” covers. Spaceman hero, girl in distress, creature and a rocket ship.
1. Using my sketch as a guide, I inked this as black and white in Corel Painter 11 at 300 dpi. I kept the characters on their own layers so they could be separated from the background.
2. I used Adobe Live Trace to vectorize the high res black and white images.
3. I copied and pasted them into Adobe Flash. I colored the images there, because I prefer Flash for vector painting.
4. Then brought them all back into Adobe Illustrator to finish it up for iStockPhoto.com. They require all vector files to be compatible with Adobe EPS version 8. They also require that there are no open paths. Illustrator is great for finding problems in vectors.
I tried to include the classic EC comics elements from the “Weird Science” covers. Spaceman hero, girl in distress, creature and a rocket ship.
1. Using my sketch as a guide, I inked this as black and white in Corel Painter 11 at 300 dpi. I kept the characters on their own layers so they could be separated from the background.
2. I used Adobe Live Trace to vectorize the high res black and white images.
3. I copied and pasted them into Adobe Flash. I colored the images there, because I prefer Flash for vector painting.
4. Then brought them all back into Adobe Illustrator to finish it up for iStockPhoto.com. They require all vector files to be compatible with Adobe EPS version 8. They also require that there are no open paths. Illustrator is great for finding problems in vectors.