life in general

I am trying to catch a clue- seems like as I try to move my life to  work with my art- life gets in the way to try to stop me- "You have to make more money"- "What I am doing is not good enough, or fast enough ". I suppose I need to lay down the art and go back to non dreaming and work I was not feeling passionate about. I need to get Comics Nextra into reality phase faster instead of developmental phase.... A Side Hustle may be needed to help alleviate these earthly stresses- I Need a plan and a clue....I am glad I tried to get one art piece Done today and may be on to selling a house tomorrow....
Okay- venting - over...
I did this image in @skecthbookPro7

back to where we started

A  a history Note, I was originally into cartoons and strips before I veered into comics- I love the superheroes since being a kid but was also fascinated by Popeye, Mutt and Jeff and Beatle Bailey...I had originally thought getting syndicated was the way to go but had no clue how to work that system. So when I found out about comic books, I felt I had a better option.... I still had a liking for the strip way of life and may still pursue  it but more web based.... Any way my character Jimmy Jokes came about as a way to express how I felt about my love of science and engineering as well as comics and tech back in the day..... I just finished watching a Documentary about comic strip artists on Netflix today  and was inspired to unearth my character once again.....

fan toons

I came up with a a possible way to start my  use my comics nextra plan- I am thinking about creating a motion-like comic from a successful comic of the past - Torchy Brown, from Jackie Ormes successful comic- Torchy Brown: in Heartbeats- so here is a quick sketch of jackie Ormes pivotal character - this will be a test and will be labeled Fan TOON

working out the kinks

Okay I wanted to see my weak points in drawing a  character in an action pose/my possible concerns are:
1. character posing
2. tangents
3 . clothes on character  of form
4. hands
5 shoes in perspective
6. rendering  a character

okay I think i did well in 1,2,3,4,6 but 5 is a problem- so I will be drawing footwear in my sketchbook till I get it right.... hands and feet are still my weakness for character design- but its was a good try...
ciao...

face-time

Another face done in Sketchbook Pro 7-

Another Static Shock pose- wIP

I am just putting up pictures now- did this static shock image in photoshop to see if I can make some work on industry digital software- looks okay- gotta work on my hands
peace

Monday- post- face again

Hey, wanted to post up an image I did yesterday. I created it in Sketchbook Pro 7, which has some cool features that I did not notice in Sketchbook pro 6 or 2011- the paint bucket tools and the clean path tools are not new but their ease of use is more apparent than before- so here is my process

1. using the standard pencil tool- I create a layout sketch in the bottom layer ( right above the BG layer which I am digging right now)
2. I lower the opacity of that layer and clean up in a layer above- still using the pencil tool.
3. Once I feel the draft is clean enough for my use, I lower the opacity of that new layer and turn off the original layer and start inking with a modified pencil brush - many of the standard pencils can be modifies using the brush tool sliders- the pencil tool I use now looks and feels like an ink brush- I use to use the felt pen modified- but I like to keep that rough  for sketching and this pencil for inking ( your preference really)
4. I found out when I ink a line, my hand moves best in one direction so I use the rotate canvas feature with my Wacom  Intuous 4 a lot. - Also the space bar on my Mac ( I love this feature on the fly- makes work more fluid) 
5. Okay- here is where I found out, that the steady stroke tool works wonders on long sweeping lines- it also is pressure sensitive for thick and thin line transition-otherwise I would be doing this by hand- time and lifesaver!
6. Now I have a clean line drawing- what about large black fill areas like under the chin and hair- this is where i found out the selection tool along with the paint bucket tool gives the better result.  Before I was trying to outline an area and fill inside that area- this always left a blank halo or if double clicked over saturated the fill- selection/ fill is a cleaner method... 

( note I will usually do all the above in green or blue color but then change the layer to black with the Hue/Saturation pick under the Image>Adjust tab.. ( again your preference)

Okay now to color once I have a clean line drawing( note using hard eraser is a good thing for outlines..

1.To make base colors I open a layer underneath the line drawing layer- and use the now tested selection/fill technique.   There may be some clean up or erasing needed so zooming in to areas is also a plus for a clean look

2 Now for highlights, I like  to place geometric fills on a layer between the line and above the base color...
3.Since I don’t want the highlights to be completely sharp and jagged; I use the soft eraser tool to give the highlights a more organic /geometric mix transition... and thats it...
4. Last but not least I choose a BG color that helps the image pop-