NSFW speed paint

Woke up in a painting frenzy for some reason.  I should have been working on my storyboards, but I decided on doing a painting instead.  Still got lots of time until the day is over, so I guess I'll be getting to those storyboards!

Hit the jump to see the painting.  Warning! NSFW

Inks and Screen Tone

Slowly getting the hang of this.  Basically the problem with the last batch of screen tones was that the resolution was too low.  When I photographed this ink painting, I split it up into 9 sections and then auto-aligned them in photoshop.  With more pixels to play with, I was able to keep the dot matrices small enough to not compete with the line work. 

6/23/2012 Speed Paint

I've been concentrating on my comic these days, so I haven't had a chance to do paintings.  I thought I'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone by practicing some painting, and doing a color study of one of my characters at the same time.

Some More Findings

First, photoshop is proving itself not be to be the best for screen toning.  The Images I brought into Photoshop were already high resolution, but the dot matrices were too large even at the smallest settings.  and I'm not really sure how to create new patterns.  Also, the process is quite slow.

On the more Analog side, I need to draw with thicker lines.  Must not forget that all these will be shrunk down, and lines that are too thin are hard to read.

Even though manga style drawings are far more lighter with the inking, the darker colors still need more blacks.

More Inking

 The inking continues!

I'm getting a bit more familiar with what I can get away free hand and what i need to use a ruler for.  Basically any line that's shorter than my index finger, I can get done with just free handing, but any line longer than that, I need a ruler to keep my hand steady.  The problem is if I have to reposition my elbow mid stroke, the line becomes wobbly, and the line weight becomes inconsistent.

I'm thinking it's time I try screen-toning.

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Been watching a lot of car shows as inspiration.  Top Gear, and Fifth Gear being the major TV shows I've been watching, with a healthy dose of Initial D and Wangan Midnight.  They're super fun shows, especially if you're into cars. 

At first I was looking for good car chase movies on netflix, but there's not a lot there to choose from...  Ronin definitely has my favorite car chase scenes, but other than that, I can't think of anything good.  Any suggestions?

Findings from the Inking Laboratory

Today's challenge was cars and motorcycles.  I'm getting a little better at creating "mechanical noise", and there's really no easy way around it.  You just have to build up a vocabulary of mechanical looking jargon and figure out where you have to place it.  You can build this vocabulary much easier when inking and painting than graphite, and im not really sure why yet.  Possibly because the mechanical noise you create just becomes a grey mess.

Another thing I need to practice is not to get too zealous.  The inks on these should be a bit more blank, and I have to stop myself from trying to shade with cross hatching.  Shading on mechanical things should be done with screen toning (especially if it's surface color, shadows could be done through cross hatching though).

A few more useful tips to consider:

-Be patient.
-Cannot stress enough, do not use a dip pen when using a ruler.  The ink bead gets under the ruler and ruins the drawing.
-When drawing long lines, spin the paper around so the line is consistent with the arch of your arm.  It's nearly impossible to draw a clean line if your drawing a long curve that bows towards your own elbow.  Spin it around so it bows away from your arm, and use anatomy to your advantage!
-You should know how to draw wheels without stencils (with graphite), but just use stencils when inking
-Microns seems to bleed much less than Sharpie felt tip pens
-Be patient

I still have to work on getting better at drawing wheels.  I have a few stencils, but they're never the right size/pinch to draw the wheel angles I want.

Next episode, we shall have people ON vehicles!

Gettin' in the Groove

I'm starting to get the hang of this whole inking business.  Some things I've learned:

-Don't leave ink out for too long, it gets too thick, and won't come off the pen.
-Ink seems to behave more predictably when it's a bit on the humid side
-Microns seem to be more reliable for crosshatching and drawing mechanical things (esp when using a ruler)
-Adjustable curves and rulers are awesome for drawing cars
-Ease out lines with some light hatching.

I think my problem from before was that I wanted each stroke to be perfect.  Honestly I'm liking my lines a lot better when I'm slightly off the mark the first time.  I didn't think you could "work in" a line with ink, but it's actually a bit more forgiving than i thought.

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In unrelated news, I rode my scooter today.  Got it all the way up to 43mph!  That may not seem like a big deal, but on a 50cc, it's a feat!  I'm glad the weather's been clearing up so that I can ride my scooter again.  Summer time is truly here!

Speaking of summer time, I remember I made a post last year around this time.  I remember this post quite dearly.  It was a bit of an artistic breakthrough for me.  It's around the time I decided on a direction i wanted to go as an artist, and this was the first painting I did in that vein.  If you don't remember it, please take another look.  It's not one of my most popular paintings, but it's very precious to me.

Inkin' Around

Well, as you all may know, I have more free time.  A lot less income, but more free time is still always a welcomed change! I've been meaning to brush up on my inking for a long time (no pun intended).  For the most part I've been trying to figure out what my favorite method is.  I tried these new fangled brush pens, but they seem to be no good.  The dried ink isn't stable enough to withstand the eraser. 

I've been rockin' the dip pen, micron, brush, and sumi ink combo, and that seems to give good results.  The ink dries stable enough to just rub an eraser over it to clean up all the graphite.  The pen is manageable, though I'm trying to relax more when I use it.  And microns are just easy mode for cross hatching. 

Also trying to familiarize myself with this adjustable curve.  It makes drawing cars waaaaay cleaner, and easier to hold a steady line. 

You'll be seeing more of these!