Oops! No, wait, it's all good...

I've been busy with a comics style illustration project for the last little while, and today I sent off the files for final approval. Sounds like we're good to go, finally. But there were some problems during production.

Part way through, I decided I'd made a bit of a blunder, and had to make a substantial revision to one of the illustrations. Between the thumbnails/roughs stage and the final pencils I changed my mind about how to portray two characters. Compare the images below:

 I had decided to put the vampire character's face in deep shadow, to add more drama and mystery, or so I thought. But when I looked at the final inks, I was not happy. This is, frankly, crap - heavy-handed and poorly executed.

 Now, a brief aside. My typical approach to this kind of work has been to do all my pencils and inks traditionally on drawing Bristol, and colouring and lettering digitally. But I have been interested in doing more digital drawing and inking. I recently got a new computer and upgraded my graphics tablet from an old Bamboo to an Intuos Pro. I decided to attempt a digital revision using Manga Studio 5.

First, on a new layer on top of a scan of the inked artwork, I whited out the offending heads and re-drew them in layout blue, with the positions and angles more in keeping with the original rough. Already the layout is more dramatic, there is more tension. And the drawing is much better...

 Then, using MS5's incredible inking tools I inked the heads on a new layer. The new Intuos made all the difference in achieving the kind of finished line I have been looking for in a digital program.

 I finished the illustration with a simulation of grey washes in MS5, converted the file to a hi-rez jpeg and sent it off.

When I get the okay, I'll post copies of all the illustrations for this project. Now, to produce something from start to finish in Manga Studio that I will feel is of a professional level. I'll keep you posted!

Trick or Treat

It's that time of year again - creepies and crawlies and things that go bump! in the night. Thought I'd have a little fun with a Hallowe'en "good girl" style of pin-up, so I started doodling in my sketchbook the other night, while waiting for friends at a pub. I was looking for cute, and seductive, and a little spooky - this was the result.

Next day I redrew the concept on 9" x 12" plate Bristol, roughing out with a Col-Erase Light Blue pencil #20068.  It's not the one they call non-repro; I find this one nicer to draw with, and any leftovers after inking don't seem to scan. I tidied up the drawing with a B pencil and got to inking. (Sorry, no scan of the final pencil)

I love using a brush to ink. I've tried to use markers like some of the well known comics guys do, but I can't get the liquid line look I like. So the inking is mostly witha #2 sable watercolour brush, Hunt #108 dip pen, the really flexible one, and the occasional bit of fine marker to touch up. And yes, some white-out here and there to clean up a couple of poor decisions.

I scanned the final black and white artwork and opened it in Manga Studio5. This is superb software for any kind of comics or illustration work, and I love the feel of the natural media brushes. I've tried Photoshop and Corel Painter, and I'm much happier with MS. This was coloured on several different layers, seperating the background, skin, hair, clothes and jack-o'-lantern as individual elements, with the black and white line work on top. The glow from Jack was added on another layer on top of the line work. I also changed the canvas size eventually, to allow for the lettering, which was done in CorelDraw.

I have a couple of other Hallowe'en-themed pieces on the go, so keep an eye out - they will be along soon!

Flechette

One of the areas I'd really like to break into as an illustrator is the collectible card games market. Some of the ilustration I've seen there is outstanding, much of it strictly digital. This sample is a mix of traditional and digital. The drawing was done with ink on bristol, then scanned and coloured in Manga Studio. I am really impressed with the MS brush engine; the oil brushes are great, and I still need to play more with the watercolour brushes.

Portrait Sketch

I was very disappointed to be unable to attend my monthly figure painting session today. So, in self defence, I broke out the digital paintbox to attempt a quick study.

Most of my recent posts have been comics and cartoon related, but I have been looking at trying some of the painting tools in SketchBook Pro and MangaStudio 5, just to see how they stack up against my elderly version of Photoshop. And I have been very pleased with their performance.

This is an invented head, painted in SBP. I used only one brush out of a potential multitude of choices and a very limited palette. It very much resembles a first pass or rough block in with oils. Unfortunately I didn't save enough separate files to show the progression to get to this point, for which I kick myself. I'll try to do better next time... And someone has been urging me to do some screen recording videos for YouTube, so that may be in the near future as well.

I expect to spend a little more time with this one, and try to refine it to a higher degree of finish than anything else I have attempted in the digital studio. And the beauty of digital is that I can make changes on new layers and only keep the successful bits.

While I'm sorry to have missed an afternoon with my painting friends, this has been a very worthwhile afternoon's dabbling. I think this has great possibilities.

Trick or Treat

Well, I continue to play with Photoshop, and I think my skills are improving, to the point, gentle reader, that I am aboutto inflict a step-by-step on you...

This began as an unfocused doodle. At some point it implied the image of a skull, which morphed into, surprise, surprise, the personification of Death. But the tried and true left me a bit cool, so I thought, what if Death took an apprentice, a young woman, perhaps. Would she be angry, vengeful, goofy, mischievous, or just a little unsettling...?

My approach to painting in Ps has been a bit all over the map, so far. I've settled down a bit and decided to go with the grayscale-to-colour approach, really work on the value structure first, and then introduce colour. It worked for the Old Masters, and who am I to argue with long-lived success? I copied the drawing onto a new Multiply layer, so I could see through it, and began painting my values under it onto the Background layer.At this stage, I'm most concerned about simple blocks of only a few values. Mostly, I'm using a chalk brush, with Shape Dynamics off and Opacity set to Pen Pressure.

Following one of the great guiding principles, "work from the large, broad and general to the more refined and specific" I start to define the image a little more clearly. I refine the shape of the body and the hood of the cloak, and begin to paint the suggestions of volume, seperating the darks and lights. I've turned off the upper drawing layer now, so the bits of drawing you still see are from the original background image. Then I creat a new Overlay layer and wash in the first colour notes.

Now I have some base colour to work with, and I can continue to refine the shapes,volumes and edges. For the most part I will use the colour picker and adjust for saturation and value, in an attempt to keep the colour harmony intact. I don't actually introduce any new colour until I add the the rust (or perhaps dried bodily fluids) to blade of the scythe, with a textured brush.

A few more tweaks and fiddles and I think it's enough. It's still a long way from a finished illustration, but this was meant to be a learning exercise, and I think I've learned a lot. The face is still very much a coloured drawing as opposed to a painting, but I'll work on that in my next project.