Watching robotech movie

I was blown away at the draftsmanship of this Robotech movie I  am watching on Netflix- the addition of the 3g spaceship scenes makes this a major animation movie that probably wont get the credit it deserves- I suppose I am  fair-weather anime fan- I only give credit to the big box office productions...So here is a small tribute- got to get better with my draftmanship and color- but will keep trying...

tunnel rat

just trying to loosen up my sketchbook pro skills- I put ti down for a piece to do some comic work on photoshop cs5- but will try to do some concept work in the near future and to be honest sketch book pro has its focus on concept design and digital tools geared to the concept design artist- so i had to really learn how brushes are made again- so off to youtube and vimeo for some tutorials... I created this tunnel rat image with sketchbook pro and a some custom made brushes- I wasn't planning on anything special but the control with the linear brushes after they are created is exceptional- got a lot more work to do on painting and coloring as one can see- but I will let you take a peak at the image- Tunnel rat- peace

anime look- spike

just looking at Cowboy bebop movie and decided to pull off my rendition of Spike- this is a  another cel shade practice piece for me.  The image was done in photoshop cs5- a program that is increasingly becoming my  digital art tool of choice... The initial line work was sketch on background layer and finished on layer 1 using pen tool, ( with both fill in and create stroke) the brush used is  round hard brush at 100%opacity and 100% flow with shape dynamics  minimum diameter set at 65%  to give an even thin line... The base color and shade are done 3 layers between background -- layer 2 for facial tone, layer 3 for clothes, and layer 4 for hair--- I used lasso tool to map out ares of tone then later use lock transparent pixels to stay inside the lines for further rendering... for feathering effect- i used the smudge tool set at 80% strength.  For any further layers I used clipping layers- also to stay within the lines... my last set is the erase the background layer and add a hard brush tone with low flow for the background....

birthday gift to myself- ctrl-paint tutorial

I decided to treat my self for my birthday, so I got the rendering in photoshop tutorial from ctrl-paint.com- Matt Khor the author claims it was a photoshop version of art 101- so I peeped it out and tried to use some of the tricks on the attached image... it was a cool tutorial series that stressed seeing in value rather than color and the three types of shadow- cast( direct light), bounced light ( indirect light) and occlusion shadows ( dark shadows that may seem like lines due to proximity of objects to each other----the one thing I got out of doing the attached image is that practice and observation are key- so as you can see I need to observe and practice more- lol- peace

here come the boomers

just watching this anime series called Parasite dolls about a world filled with humans and androids called boomers- this is a take of of AD police series- bubble gm crisis- I thought I would do some fan images of boomers in photoshop- so here is my first- to create the brush texture- i added transfer and texture to the regular soft brush with shape dynamics- no scatter was used for this brush- so it kind of smears than blots- I was looking for a charcoal or patel-pencil look- I guess its close....I used eraser tool on highlights of the hair- and a larger soft brush on lower opacity for shading...

upcoming cover design for IF-x

I was asked to do a cover IF-X comics and I can't seem to say no to trying something new- so I mocked up my character FX-Mulrooney for a comic with an April fools theme. So if you understand the hardcore nature of my FX character- there is some humor in it- any way here was my process... first drew draft image on paper and cleaned up in photoshop.... but the base image anatomy and composition were weak at first- so i redid the image- focusing on a foreshortened and perspective of the piece with the focus on face- to show some expression. After a good compositional pose was created- I lightened the image on layer (not background) and set opacity of layer to 35- I then inked the piece ( in photoshop) using hard brush, the pen tool, and a combination of both. On layer below- i add the flat colors- one above that and below the line add shading on mutliply layer - using a large soft brush at low opacity and flow. and a final high light layer on normal. my last part is to color the background with a two color gradient... so that's it.... the image will be used with text and masterhead for IFX for the april Fools issue- cool....

quik photoshop drawing

I am trying to get ready for a toy character mock up I am doing for a local performance artist so I need to draw cute girls in action- I decided to warm up with some photoshop tools and created this as a test for me- its created all in photoshop- I sketched the image with small hard brushes at 100% opacity and about 8-15 flow(adjusting level to lighten up drawing)... I then modified brushes to larger brushes with brush shape modified thickness at 65%- and used pen tool (( note when using pen tool or illustrator brush tools-remember to hide ends of lines if possible)) to draw out outlines of the border shapes and use stroke path- this gave me a clean inked line look (on new layer on top)- created some layers underneath- at layer below laid out flat colors and did a shadow layer above flat colors (multiply layer)- all along use flat color(layer) areas as selection so I color in the lines- I finally add another layer between line and multiply layer for highlights and final rendering pushes- as a render I use smudge brushes larger at low strength for larger smoothing areas and small brush at 85% for hair renders....I keep background layer clear for a gradient selection two hue image- I use levels adjustment to get a less saturated mood..... and that's it- still have a lot to learn... every image I just wish to keep getting better...

any critiques....?