Signature

 Computer Programs Making Comic Creation Easier     Clip Studio Paint has great 3D models you can alter and pose. I see how comics would be significantly easier to draw when you can line right over them with a tablet but I choose to merely use them as references for my sketches. I've spoken before on the difficulty of establishing good action poses. Everything is made much easier with references.     Here's my main character Sayth leaping forward and to the side:  I plan to color this in and draw a monster he's fighting and paste it into the foreground.     Computer programs eased my task of creating this in several ways. They provided a reference, allowed my to enlarge the head as I had drew it a bit too small and let me paste different sketches together. The tail, you might have noticed, is a different quality than the rest and was drawn separately. These kinds of things make character creation smoother and less messy or tedious w...

 I'm Thinking of Getting Clip Studio Paint     So far I've just been sketching my characters on a drawing pad and scanning them. I have photoshop but it's not designed for illustration. Every rough graphite speck is picked up and it can be difficult to fill in between the lines. I need software professionals use and it seems to be fairly cheep.     For now, here's the character with two greatswords I sketched. It was a busy drawing so I shaded it. Although it turned out alright, the pose is a bit weak. I did it without any reference. It's hard to manage not one but two massive weapons. I might come back to this character.     This is Nighmarika; she's the admiral of the Legion of Sypter.

 Planning Poses This is the villain from my book, Mr.Rhyme. He's actually a god in human form. I'm mainly uploading this as an improvement log and not as the character's final portrait. The pose is a little awkward. He's supposed to be levitating but that's not obvious unless I explain it. Now that I've drawn him once it will be easier to get a better sketch.        It's hard to figure out good poses. Recently I've been experimenting on sketching a character with two greatswords and have ended up with many an attempt that didn't work. Although I think I've finally figured one out. I probably should look up poses as reference rather than drawing them from imagination.      Also sorry about the slower pace of posts; I'm taking care of my mom who has stage four cancer and that can be really stressful at times. This will probably become my regular amount of activity.

 Finally Got Some Sketches Uploaded     I've been trying to incorporate foreshortening into my character sketches. It took a while but I finally made one of Spiral that I like:   Noticeably her arms protrude into the foreground and background. The face turned out really well. To explain my process...     I start with a perfect circle then extend it out into an egg shape. From there I draw a stick figure of the pose. This is a very important step as it captures not only the flow of the drawing but the proportions as well. You want to get everything right on this step. I often plan this out but find it looks awkward then start over but use the first sketch as reference to get the next one right. You can see how I planned Spiral out below.     Draw a strong pose. Action poses are hard but worth it. Make it interesting. Have in mind what they're doing. Don't just draw them standing there.       Here's the stick figur...

 Working on Character Concept Art     I'm still working on sketching out the characters for my book. It's hard to draw unique characters with no references. As I go on I'll sketch the same characters again and they'll get easier to draw.      Unfortunately my sketch pad is not at home so I can't upload my art today. I'll have it soon.

 Gradually Improving      Art is hard but the trick is to keep practicing. Lately I've done a lot of sketches that haven't worked out. The larger part of creating something that works is finding out what doesn't work and pushing yourself. Draw frequently and really focus on correct proportions. It's important to sketch out stick man poses before filling them in. Otherwise it's easy to slowly draw a figure more and more out of proportion as you work down. I'll post more sketches once I get something presentable. 

 Art as Inspiration for Fictional Worlds     A hobby of mine is making dreamscapes on photoshop. Surreal environments that are interesting and unique. Many of these end up in my writing. I want my story to be consistently creative and witty right down to the setting. Of course this can be a difficult thing to accomplish with the written word. It's much easier to describe a setting that already exists, a beach etc, than to create fictional alien worlds. As such I try to used examples people can relate to.      Here's one such example that will appear in my second book: the Consumed Etropolis. A silicon city consumed by electric plants. When writing about it I'll relate it to real world things like a city, flowers and a jungle but then expand into floating building and lightning coursing through plants. Expect many such settings in my books.

 Foreshortening     I'm at a place in my sketches where the figures look good but I need to branch out. What makes comic book art really good is not only the human form but drawing it in perspective. It's something my art's been lacking. I've been trying to draw more regularly but life stuff keeps me busy. I need more practice. Here's a perspective figure sketch I did. I'm getting more consistent at drawing women's faces too. Since it's practice I didn't bother cleaning the sketch up.

  Reworking Old Photoshop Projects     I have a plethora of creative ideas yet realizing them is not always easy. Many are the times I've make an interesting dreamscape in concept but it ends up a mess in execution. This is very much like sketching original monsters where it needs a rough draft made first. Only then can the final version be properly planned and designed.      The Weeping Clogway is a good example of this. I had the idea of willows weeping a great labyrinth of rivers held aloft by wooden pipes. This was inspired by a dream and will be featured as a location in my book Signature Ghate. You can see here how it turned out:     I'm quite pleased with this; it was a lot of work to cutout wooden pipes and layer willow leaves over them. It is a "clogway" after all. Here's the original version I mentioned:     Great idea but poorly executed. The pieces were all there but fell into a jumble. Fortunately I was a...

 Weak Poses VS Strong Poses     When drawing without a reference finding the right pose can prove difficult. I'll often have to sketch the same character over and over to finally get it right. This applies to monsters too. The Snakoth is a monster from my novel, which I posted a sketch of earlier. Although it wasn't bad it could be improved in both pose and proportions. Here is a better version: Sadly a little bit of it couldn't fit on the paper. For comparison here is the earlier version: You can see the pose is generally weaker with it standing still unlike the action pose of the former. The arms don't make work of foreshortening as well either. But it was a good jumping off point. Practice makes perfect.

 Bismuth     I went on vacation and visited a rock and fossil shop. There I purchased a piece of bismuth.  Bismuth has a beautiful crystal formation caused by it's low melting point. Working with bismuth and other crystals on photoshop is extremely fun. I was inspired to make my next dreamscape a city but composed of bismuth. I'll post it sometime in the future.

 Poems and Monster Sketches     I've been working on a poem and it's going quite well. I'm wary of sharing unpublished work online but eventually hope to complete a full book of poetry.     In other news, I completed the snakoth sketch. It's good but now that I've figured out how the monster will look and stand on paper I can do better. Sketches have rough drafts too. This is a monster who appears in my novel:

 Sketching Pose For Humans And Monsters     Pose can be a very difficult thing to come up with. You want cool action poses full of energy but with balance and perspective as well. Juggling all these things can lead to awkwardness. It's difficult to keep poses flowing and looking natural.     My next character sketch is a prominent monster from my book, the snakoth. They are large, muscular creatures with centaur like bodies and scythe tails. A common issue for this type of sketch is fitting it all on one page. This can be especially difficult for creatures with wings like dragons. You can get action poses but they must be zoomed out significantly. Close ups require resting poses with the monsters curled up or parts of them cutout.      I've been experimenting with a lot of poses that end up not working. You have to wade through this kind of swamp before finding something that does work; hopefully making it a little better each time....

 Biraid Hog     I've been uploading some of my old monster sketches. Enjoy. I'm also tweaking a few things I dislike about the Spiral sketch and will re-upload it. 

 Character Bios      I'm considering making a label for character biographies and adding concept art to each one. This way people can find new insight and description for my characters when reading my book.      It took several failed attempts but I finally got a good sketch of Spiral. Drawing women is hard. I have massive respect for comic book artists. There's a formula for drawing the face: first I draw a circle and extend it into an egg shape. Then I draw a line halfway down the head and divide it into fifths; this will become the eyes. The head is five eyes wide with a single width in between the actual eyes. Then I draw an equilateral triangle from the outside corners of the eyes down the face. Where this ends marks the mouth. One third of the way up from the mouth is the bottom of the nose. Even with these guidelines, my faces often go awry. It's hard to get the eyes to mirror each other but practice makes... well better anyway.  ...

 So, What's Next?     I completed my novel, which took over 2 years, and my painting. It's nice to get projects done. I've uploaded some sketches of monsters from my drawing pad and will talk more about them later. I've also been brainstorming the outline of a sequel and drawing characters from my novel as concept art.     Drawing women is hard; I have great respect for comic book artists who can sketch all kinds of poses in perspective without reference. It took several attempts but I finally got a good sketch of Spiral; it's not yet complete. My wrists are a little sore from doing so much work so I'm taking a break tomorrow. I should have the sketch done in a few days.     For now please enjoy this golem I drew. It took several tries to get the flow of the pose right.

 Painting a Bouquet on Photoshop     My project is finally complete. Here is the finished version: First I found an image of a bouquet. Then I sketched a mushroom shape to guide the dimensions of the bouquet. I sketched in the flower shapes. Next I filled in the details. In photoshop, using a tablet, I painted each flower layer by layer. Finally I filled in the details and added a background. Thank you for your patience. This has been my longest project so far. If you like creative projects stick around for more in the future and share this blog so it can grow.

 Lengthy Art Projects      I'm still figuring out how to format this blog. My aim is to produce content at a steady rate but certain art projects, like painting the bouquet I sketched, are proving to be very time consuming. Rather than put full projects into one daily post, I'm considering making several update posts followed by one final overview of the project.      For now I'm continuing to paint over my bouquet sketch with a tablet on phototshop. Photoshop uses layers and this makes painting very convenient because I needn't worry about paints running together and can simply paint one flower at a time. First I painted the green leaves for a background and proceeded to create layers over that. With many flowers I would paint the shadowy back petals first than the illuminated ones on top of them. Please be patient as I hope to have results soon although there is still much to be done.

 Hiking in Colorado     If you're in the front range area you'll frequently see and hear about people hiking. Colorado is a beautiful state of mountains and national forests. I try to bring a camera with me when I go. Here are some scenic pictures from hiking trails.  Chautauqua Rabbit Mountain Sawhill Ponds The Anemone Trail

 Sketching a Bouquet     In this project I'm going to sketch and paint a bouquet. Step 1 is to find a photo online or order a real one as a reference. Here's the photo I used:      From there I draw the vase and a mushroom shaped hood indicating how far out the flowers reach. Then, as shown here, I draw the shapes of the individual flowers. In the next step I fill them in with tender loving care.    In part 2 I'll paint over it.