I made it move!

Kinda same old stuff but I tinkered around with it in toonboom

I shocked myself!

I've actually been working my butt off on a small personal project! I've been trying to put together a super short lil animation, mostly to try to force myself to draw BGs that actually have to be applied to an animated project and not just for funs. I've been putting it all together in toonboom which is a new program to me, but it's always very rewarding to feel yourself learning something new. I'm going to try to have this thing done in the next few weeks, everyone wish me luck.

Something that I really like

I love it when someone takes a real photo of an animal and for whatever reason there's a really anthropomorphic quality to it. A lot of them look like they're making a real human expression, it's hilarious and it makes me want to really try to capture their expression.

Ok, I'm back now

Sorry I was gone for so long, I had work to do, we're weekends only now so I have more time to work on my backgrounds. I'm trying to work with brighter colors and more detail, just trying to figure out what the right amount of texture should be to make something interesting without looking overly rendered or a godforsaken textured mess.

A study of my view from a coffee shop

Here's my study from a view from outside a coffee shop. Different colors than what I normally work with, but they're still still cool. I live in Indianapolis btw.

I don't really know what I'm doing

I'm not really too sure what I'm doing here, but I figured any start is better than no start. I won a copy of Painter 11 at ctn-x (thanks Wacom booth) and decided that I was gonna work on trying to do some of them detailed painterly backgrounds that I see people doing. I figured it wouldn't hurt me to learn something new. I swear this thing took forever, but I learned a couple of new things. One of the things I learned was that you actually have to have stronger composition in these because it gets lost in the details. I'll just keep on trucking, I assume that they will progressively get better. If I can finish one more by cripplecon I'm allowed to buy myself a burberry scarf.

I went to the bathroom

Once up a time, I went to the bathroom
then I took a trip to the desert
then, I came home and had dinner in my really small cramped dining room.

I sat on this idea forever

and then I finally drew it. I really didn't concentrate hard enough on the part I really was excited about challenging myself on though. I wanted to do a better job of composing the animal heads and using good hierarchy, but I got lazy and kinda just drew them there.


I try to draw characters also, drawings of characters I'd actually want to see.

HELL!!

standard fire/cave hell. don't go there ok.

Digital Background Tutorial

Over the past couple of months I've been asked by a few people how I do my digital backgrounds. I always reply with the same answer, "oh it's super easy". So I've decided to put together a quick tutorial on how I do my backgrounds.

Materials: Nothing too fancy, Photoshop CS3, Wacom tablet Intuos 2 (old I know), and a scanner to scan my initial sketch.

I'm going to start off by sketching my background on paper, it always feels a lot more natural to me and I can work a lot faster that way. For those who feel just as comfortable drawing in a tablet or have a cintiq, go for it, good for you.

My focus is going to be on the actual technique I use to render the BGs, but I want to briefly go over the sketch that I'm going to paint. My objective is to draw attention to the main character (marked in red), so I'm going to keep that area clear. The eye is also drawn toward harsh contrast, to I also have a bold horizon line bisecting the main character (marked in green). I make sure that any rocks or trees in the back create a line that draws you to the main character (marked in purple). Lastly my two secondary characters are contained within the shape of the rock as to unify them with the background and not draw attention from the main focus (marked in yellow). I've also noticed from my studies, that the horizon line is always right about in the middle.

Here are two important brushes that I use for my textures. They are literally bathroom sponges that I dipped in paint and scanned. You can make any texture into a brush easily by going to Edit-Define Brush Preset. I can send you hi-res versions of these textures if you like.

I've adjusted my sketch to be 8.5X11 and 300 dpi. I've the set the layer with the sketch on it to "Multiply" to make it transparent and put it at the very top so that I can see anything that I draw below it.

Now I'm going to start coloring it from the very back, which would be the sky. Before I put down the color of the sky, I make a layer then color it a solid light cream or grayish color using the bucket tool. Then I've created a layer of pink for the actual BG color also using the bucket tool. NOW, I set my eraser tool to one of my large sponge texture brushes, and lightly (20% or 10% opacity) go over the entire pink layer. This is what I'm going to be doing with every single layer I paint hereafter, this will give it that nice texture as well as unify the colors by making them slightly transparent (therefore allowing the colors beneath to show through and blend together).

Now I've gone and colored in all of the major elements in the picture. I did this mostly by filling in lassoed areas, I used a solid brush on the smaller trees and rocks. I've also erased over each layer with a textured brush like I did with they sky. Note that each element is on it's own layer. I like going back and being able to adjust my colors and fix things as I go along, so I keep every little thing on it's own layer.

Now I'm going to go back and add texture and details to each of those major elements. I like to do this mostly by going over large areas with a big brush set at about 40% opacity. I make sure to set the shape dynamics on them so I can get good varying line widths. Then afterwards I go back and use my textured erasers on them as usual. I will usually have 2 or 3 layers of texture for each element. One for dark, one for light, and one for small details like linework or spots.

These stones for example are one of the places where I DO actually paint on the texture. Generally I only add texture by erasing, but I paint it on in areas where I need it to look very deliberate. Some observations that I've made when studying old HB BGs were that spots or bark tends to be grouped into threes.

Now that I've finished adding texture and details to the individual components, I'm going to make one last layer over all of them, and add the last final details, such as tiny flowers and grass. (note that I've changed the color of the sky, I'm constantly changing my colors until I find something I like)

Lastly, apply hastily drawn characters, voila! finished.

I'd like to add that pretty much everything I learned about doing these BGs I learned by directly copying old Hannah Barbera (mostly Art Lozzi) BGs, and reading stuff on the John K blog. If you have any additional questions please feel ultra free to ask me. My hope is that someone out there remotely benefits from this tutorial. Thanks for your support.

Dogs I drew from a book and short animation

I got a book on dogs from a used book store and drew some of them. The foxes I actually saw in a park (not wild, in a cage). I also did a quick animation, I was originally going to make it longer, but then I saw a crazy squirrel digging a hole and decided I'd rather animate that instead so I cut it short (you'll notice the music ends kind of abruptly).

ok um, scraping for things to update with

Hi, here is one of my favorite video game characters from one of the greatest video games of all time. I plan on drawing the other characters too, but I just been having trouble drawing lately.



OK, i did NOT draw these, Rex did, that's why they're good. but I DID color them. I been trying to come up with a way to color stuff looking old fashioned like a bazooka joe comic. I think that style works more better for his drawings than mine.



Here's a pic of my wall from the caricature convention. I had a lot of fun hanging out and partying with my friends. This photo is courtesy of Emily.


HAHA ok, this is a secret preview of my "animation" for cripplecon. OMG i will see you there!!


ok, btw, I am working on a BG tutorial. I just got to draw a good BG first.

Making sure I still knew how to draw.

Just some doodles to see if I'm applying anything I've learned from all the practice I've been doing. Ideally the practice lessons will strengthen my art in the direction I wanted to go in the first place. I think it's working.

In case anyone has been wondering what I have been doing

I've been drawing a lot. I have been mostly practicing how to draw backgrounds and other stuff it's all here on this blog. it's mostly copies of other people's work, but i've learned a lot so far.


But here is a couple of drawings.

I have been sitting on these doodles for a week now trying to think of how to render and finish them up, but I figured I'd just post them the way they are for now. They are the contestants in an animals battle of the bands.

Also a digital background of an island.

Cookies

Ok, so I really haven't been drawing that much, mostly because of work and whatever. After Dr.Sketchy's Marie Antoinette themed life drawing, I had been trying to develop a good marie antoinette character face. I think there's a lot of different directions I could go with something like that. Any resemblance to Leslie is purely coincidental.

ALSO, I totally made those cookies, Aren't they cute. They're totally for Marie Antoinette. I want to make more now, and make them progressively more ornate.

Also, I wish I coulda gone to comicon, but oh well, there's always next year.

life drawing from dr.sketchy's

this is like the only thing of substance that i've drawn for a month now. omg you would die if you saw the crap that i have been drawing recently. i will try harder, i promise. ooh, next month dr.sketchy's theme is marie antoinette, that is exciting to me.

backgrounds for nothing

sorry havn't been drawing much

rather all my drawings have been studies and experiments and or crappy.
but here is a crappy 1 panel comic i did, i made some more, i should try to finish them.

Also featuring, drawing i did at dr.sketchy's, some doodles of myself, brian as a dog nose person(which totally works btw), and george liquor