Wow! A lot of love for my previous picture. I'm going to keep at this colour malarky then and see what comes.
A while ago I did a piece for the IF topic of 'talisman'. Well, I wasn't that happy with it so I decided to have a second attempt, and this is the result - something that conveys much more of the concept of nature that I originally wanted. Overall, an improvement I think.
It's been a while since my last post as I've been busy exploring Montreal, which is very different from the desert this person is worn out from exploring.
Worn happens to be the word of the week for Illustration Friday.
Greetings from Montreal! I've been here a couple of days and loving it already.
Anyway, here's another attempt at digitally painting in colour. This time featuring Ballistik from the DAMbots.
As I'm leaving the country I'm not going to have access to a scanner for a while so I decided to do a quick test of ArtRage as an alternative for drawing my comic. This picture shows the results, drawn entirely on the laptop, and I think it does a pretty good job of it.
Long story short, no need for me to stop drawing my comic. Everyone rejoice!
Wow... finally reached the 100 blog posts milestone.
To mark this ceremonious occasion, a parade (of ants) will march past my house. I've also drawn this little painting showing some biological warfare going on inside the body.
I used the same background for virus and added some other bits here and there to see what it would look like. Not enough contrast to make it work, though.
Here's the second cracked image.
Ok, actually this was going to be the one I submitted for Illustration Friday, but when I painted it I had the idea to do the planet image, which came out better.
I was more interested in exploring light and dark in this than the concept itself, though in the end I thought I'd crack up my initials as well just for fun!
Also, why is it that when I say I'm going to do loads of posts I vanish from the face of the Earth for a month, but when I say I'll not post much, as I did a week ago, I end up posting more in a week than ever before?
Here's my 'official' illo for this week's Illustration Friday, the word of the week being cracked, my take being a cracked planet. And this also turns out to be one of my best colour pieces yet.
I've been using Art Rage, which came with my Wacom, and find the combination to be a breath of fresh air.
So why did I highlight 'official'? Well, I've done another 'cracked' picture which I'll also post today but not submit to their list, this one being the superior of the two...
Following on from my previous attempt for Illustration Friday, here's a new experiment in drawing fake electron microscope images. The painting is of the T4 virus, which apparently feeds on ecoli bacteria, or something like that. I just love its other-worldly look, which shows that the microscopic world is far stranger than anything we would ever find in our own.
I actually doodled this grunt on paper at work ages ago while I was installing something. I finally got around to drawing it semi-properly. I tried to aim for something that hides a lot of the detail in the shadow and looks a bit like a futuristic knight.
On another note, does anyone have any good tips on shading? I find either there is perfect smooth shading like a 3D image, but that seems too hard for me, then there are other techniques that just layer a couple of shades but then it ends up messy as in this picture. I don't know how to do either method 'properly' so any tips and help or pointers to some tutorials would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Sorry about the really really long delay between posts yet again. I do have a valid excuse this time, which is that I've been prepping for a move to a games company all the way over in Montreal! This does mean future posts might be a bit thin on the ground for a while but I'll do my best to keep going...
Anyhoo, here is my take on the latest Illustration Friday topic - Contagious. Fortunately this fits in well with the kind of thing I draw regularly for my webcomic. This time I decided to explore drawing in a new way, trying to emulate the style of electron microscopic imaging, which almost works. I'm a big fan of the technique as everything ends up looking like an alien planet.
So do you like this? If you do I might draw some more, but to do that let's set a target of, say, 10 or more comments this time - if I break the magic double figure comment threshold I'll draw another pic like this perhaps. Your call...
A super quick digi painting done for this week's IF topic - Talisman. I really just wanted to see how fast I could paint something, but think it turned out ok in the end, even if it's not the most original of pictures.
I was desperately struggling to find something to draw for the latest IF topic, poise, when it all quite literally fell into place.
I'm not that good an ice-skater, and when I had a go this week a slight tumble ended up with my arm in a sling and me drifting in and out of consciousness! Well, it was nothing serious and I'm almost back to normal already, but I thought I would show to the world how I have far from perfect poise when I skate, in a little picture that shows the moments just before the accident.
Also, this is a really awful self-portrait. Though, I might have drawn a little bit more hair than I have in real life!!
It's Illustration Friday again, and that means I've done a painting.
Here's one that is a slight play on words for this week's word- Subtract.
I originally wanted to have a robot in there because, well, robots are cool, but I went with something a bit more realistic in the end.
I wasn't sure if the image conveyed what it's intended, which is that somebody 'subtracted' (haha, I could make a living out of these jokes... ahem) the difference engine, so I added the Crime Scene banner and the police car in the background.
Ah well, it's kinda pretty looking for something I did anyway. But I think I'll steer clear of anymore programmer jokes from now on...
Sometimes I have half an idea for an image and can't quite get it to gel. This picture is one of them. Bits I like, others - meh.
I've decided to start using Illustration Friday as a springboard for some creativity. I often work best when my mind is free to go to random places.
Anyway, the word of the week is Legendary, and the first things that came to mind were the ancient Greek myths. One story has always inspired me, ever since I was a little pup, and that was the story of Jason and the Argonauts, so it's fitting that this should be my first picture for IF.
You can tell it's late at night because I'm drawing weird stuff...
Anyway, My Wacom tablet arrived and this is my first creation - a strange fawn-like thing rising from the depths of a swamp. I'm sure it made sense to draw it at some point...
This last month I've been hard at work designing the website for my Deadly Alien Microbots comic and it's finally up and running. Woohoo! It's been a steep learning curve but I'm pretty pleased with the results, so make sure you check it out and tell all your friends about it :)
http://dambots.com/
And here's a snapshot for those with clickaphobia, though you're missing out as I've put some cool things on it...
Ok, there's only one page up there at the moment. I'm going to put a page a day up over this week, most of which you saw posted on here before, and then I'll move to 2 comic pages a week, which I should be able to keep up with.
On another note, I've not had any time to do any drawing or blog posting, hence yet another month of silence. So, it's about time I got back up to speed and started the ball rolling again. See you soon...
Hiya,
I managed to borrow a Wacom tablet to see whether it's worth getting one and here's the results after a couple of hours fiddling around with it. Bear in mind that I've never even drawn an ox before and had to figure out that pose from my imagination. So, long story short I think that it's well worth me buying one. If only because it'll mean I'll be able to post stuff here more frequently!
Anyway, I talked about drawing one in my last post and now I've drawn one, so that's another thing to tick off my list. It's not quite my style of drawing, though. I always find animals quite tricky to draw so end up trying to make them too realistic when I much prefer drawing things cartoony and simplistic. Well, plenty to work on till the next time.
