sketchbook bro 6 (um pro)

just got sketchbook pro 6- wanted to see if it has some real upgrade- WOW- its cool to me- i especially like the zoom in feature with the pencil lines not getting too blurry as on sketchbook pro 2011-makes smooth clean lines simpler and the add of coptic colors and more brushes is a needed add- I noticed the added french curves and the control curve feature will make vehicles and smooth curve features easier- even my loose style is enhanced with this tool- cool beans

just a test- need more practice with hair

I did this for a test style sample for a writer in our comics group to see if I can agree for a look of her character for her story- i also did this to test my self at inking brunette hair- still have some work to do but its not a bad start- I modeled the features from Terry Moore's characters in Strangers in Paradise- if she likes it maybe it will be seen in print.....

playing with screen-like-tones

I have been looking at a lot of anime and may have to do 8 pages of a story that should have a manga feel- I wanted to play with screen tones as a substitute for  gray-shading black and white images- I started playing around with filters in photoshop- specifically the halftone filter. I created a couple of versions of this in a file and place the file into my image.... I then scaled down the file and duplicated it several times and tiled the images, then reduced those down to one layer... if the screen was too opaque - I reduced transparency to 45%- I did a quick and dirty selection then cut away the inverse of the selection to get a sort of friskette... I wanted to treat this layer similar to a graytone layer so I cold either blur the edges of the frisketts or erase edges with low opacity soft eraser--- I still need more work before I can put this into production...here the image

nostalgia

hey- wanted to put something up- in such a big chaotic rush trying to make this art thing work- so I was looking thru my hard-drive to piece together what motivated me into this this idea that I could think about drawing for a living- I found some epic failures and some cute first baby steps- I found this bear sketch- probably  modeled after the The Open Season Character- Boog- one of my first attempts at digital painting- animal hair no less- wow what was I thinking- I hate rendering hair- this is one of my stumbling points to this day- I suppose on that day I thought I was Boris Vallejo- anyway- here is the Pic I created- ciao

sorry for lag in process- but now I try to draw initial shadow shapes- I got this process from Matt Khor's  rendering tutorial- using masking layers created by shapes in the flatting process- I try to identify how shadow will work with the different areas- this is the side i need to keep working and discovering- I put the light source behind the character and above- so shadows are in lower right of forms...

quik sketch- flats away

okay I am going step by step with this piece for instruction for me and others.. Once the line work is done even roughly we can go to the flat color stage... the point of this stage is to define certain color areas for further rendering- or least that's my story- with some pieces- this may be the next to the last step- if cel shading is appropriate- for a more gradient shading- more steps are needed- so I have colored misty's suit, hair and skin-tone at the flats stage- from here I can go one of several directions-

quiky sketch- WIP

I wanted to do a color piece so I mocked up this sketch- hopefully the next few posts will step through this piece of  a fan piece of Misty Knight-this prelim sketch was done in sketchbook pro- I usually sketch loose on first layer- reduce opacity on layer and then create  finer details on next layer up. I will do this several times till I get defined usable clean line... my next step will be to bring image into photoshop- stay tuned