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.
So, it's a new year both in my calendar and in the Chinese one. Well, thanks for all the comments and sorry for the huuuuuge delay between posts but as you can see I've been a bit busy...
The pic on the left, which I managed to somehow pull together this evening, I'm going to use as a banner-type thing on my comic when I plaster the finished thing up on the interweb. So I can paint in colour after all!
As well as that I (think I) finished the cover, which is a lot simpler as I really want to go for a pulpy minimalist look for the issue one print. For those friends who helped me out in my previous post, thanks for all the comments and I did take them on board. You can see I took the second idea and jazzed it up slightly. I'd love to do something more colourful, like the banner, but I'm still not too confident with colours and I'd be a bit worried it'd betray the black and white of the comic book inside. This stays truer to the contents. Hope you agree! It probably still needs the odd tweak here and there, but I'd say it's 95% done now.
What say you all to these 2 pieces of graphic design?
I've also already started doing the pages for chapter 2!! My plan is to get a website set up and start posting chapter 1 asap. My other plan is to try and post some more non-comic stuff on here again as I'm sure you're all getting bored of this... I really should have drawn a timely picture of an ox now that I think about it.
Happy New Year(s) to everyone! I'm really excited about this one, even if it is the last full year I ever have in my twenties!
Firstly, happy Boxing Day everybody! Hope Christmas was loads of fun.
I finally finished all the pages of the first issue of Deadly Alien Microbots. Woohoo! Fully inked, scanned and cleaned up until I decide they need more work.
Unfortunately, now I need to start thinking about a cover (Urngghh!) so here is a sketchy first attempt with Fooba's looming tendrills approaching the hapless trio of microscopic robots. I really don't know much about comic book cover design so I tried to get all the elements of the comic in without revealing too much (i.e. what Fooba looks like). I imagine the whole thing to be mostly silhouette-esque black and white with the red of the blood providing a nice backdrop. I might make the heroes' stances a bit stronger, especially Ballistik.
So, is this any good? It's DAM hard (pun intended, hehe!) to come up with something eye-catching for all the peeps who have no idea what they'll be letting themselves in for if they ever pick up a copy. Being such a noob, I've got my work cut out...
-- UPDATE --
I've considered saving the window opening into a view of blood cells for a later issue's cover (yes, I am planning on this being a long running thing, if people choose to buy it, of course!), so I hastily drew some alternative ideas with some colour. This is all very rough, I might add!
I'm favouring the last one with all the characters in white, though I'll probably make the robots nice and metallic looking. But the first one with the bloodied background does seem to give off the unintentional image of a Western, which is also quite cool. Decisions, decisions...
Please let me know what you all think. Which one catches your eye the most?
Which would make you part with your pennies/dollars/euros...? :)
Page 6 of Fubar and the Deadly Alien Microbots are reunited with an old acquaintance.
I've been real busy recently and have got the pencils for this comic all the way up to page 20! Just another 5 to go, followed by inking it all, and chapter 1 of this epic is finished. Can't wait!
