There he is! Get 'im!!

Long time no post! Just a quick recent illo done in Painter. Again, deadlines were tight so I new going in I was gonna use a coloured canvas for this one - the rest of it is a subtle digital watercolour wash for the tones, and the main line art was done using a solid black 'scratchboard tool' pen.

The lines are quite varied in thickness, achieved by having the size of the brush be quite big, but using a light touch with the wacom where I could. There wasn't as much undoing and re-drawing as I thought there would be (my fingers are normally sitting on CTRL+Z) when doing the quick lines - I like to keep it looking fresh, but obviously taking advantage of the fact that I'm not drawing with real ink to keep redoing lines until I'm satisfied!

Ah, technology. At this rate I'll never learn the proper craft of inking...

Caricature ruff

A quick rough done in Painter X for a forthcoming caricature, using 2B pencil and oil pastels for colour. Don't know at this point how finished or in what style the final artwork needs to be, I'll probably still use the ol' oil pastels though! Failing that, some sort of digital airbrush use might be in order.

There's the possibility of doing a caricature for a client, but done in oil paint style on canvas, soon - should be fun! And when I say canvas, I mean the canvas paper texture in Painter and PS of course. Apparently it couldn't be decided if they wanted a formal portrait painting or a cartoon caricature, so I thought I'd combine both and see how it looks.

Will post it as soon as it gets done!

Horror Comic 2

So, not a sequel or anything, just the next phase of my old-style horror comic cover!

As you can see, no further progress on the actual artwork as of yet, but the details surrounding the cover are now complete. Future cover art can be swiftly inserted 'underneath' the various rips, creases and titles adorning this fantabulous facade, so as soon as I get a wriggle on I'll be able to show you more 'issues'!

The layout of the comic was done in Photoshop, but the artwork will be created in Painter. If there are any effects to do, though, they'll be done in Photoshop too.

Loyalty Cards

I recently had to create some fake coffee house loyalty cards, which were to be printed out onto card and used in some live action filming by proper actors and everything! Designing stuff like this isn't what I usually do on a day to day basis, but it was fun to have some general guidelines about what was needed but still have free reign to come up with whatever I wanted!

I also had to make fake architectural design sketches, travel agent window posters, and yet another coffee house loyalty card (I called that one 'The Beanery').

A recommended book for some nice, general design principles is 'The Non-Designer's Design Book' by Robin Williams (no, not him) - really easy to read, and some solid principles that can only help with general artwork and design creation - check it out!

I Thor-t it was you

Well, 'Thunor', apparently is the Norse God of storms and thunder. Aka 'Thor', methinks. Anyway, same project as last time, this! Again, a pretty quick illo (say about 15 to 20 mins all told?), and a nice layout that I'm really happy with!

Doing these illos really took me back to drawing and sketching in a comic book style, which is pretty much all I did illustration-wise whilst I was in high school - 'How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way' was my bible back then! Though to give credit where it's due, this style of drawing, as well as being a dynamic 'Marvel-esque' pose, really owes a lot to a book called 'Action! Cartooning' by Ben Caldwell. It's improved my anatomy (my drawn anatomy, that is) and styling no end. Well worth adding to your shelf. Check it out!

Ye Gods!

A recent project had me 'illustrating the days of the week', most of which are derived from the names of various Norse Gods. Anyway, above is 'Woden', and, though it's quite a simple drawing, I really like the composition of it. It came pretty quickly, as a lot of satisfying illos often do!

Done in Flash 8 with a Wacom tablet.

(No prizes for guessing the day named after this guy.)

Painter Styles

There wasn't a lot of time to do 10 illustrations for this particular project, so before going in I had a rougher finish in mind using coloured paper (so I could add colour to what needed it and leave the rest without it looking unfinished).

I chose a tan colour as most of the action was going to take place in the desert. I also had to convey quite a lot of text with one image (not quite a thousand words, but close enough!) and found myself choosing quite cinematic angles. (A handy reference was 'Wally Wood's 22 panels That Always Work!!', which can be found here:

http://joeljohnson.com/archives/2006/08/wally_woods_22.html

These illos were done using the 2B pencil and Digital Watercolor brushes. Thinking about it I wish I'd given the paper some funky rough texture. Next time!