Face Plane Studies

I wanted to work on understanding shading. One of my main problems was 3D forms so I done some quick planes studies to enhance my understanding.

This also helped me with my tablet control.

More work will come very soon.

Other news

I am reworking artfreck to something really exciting. I should have it finished in the new year.

Quick Manga Skin Shading

I wanted to test different skin tones and how they effect the look of an image. I quickly mocked up 4 faces and blocked in colours. Here are the results.

Manga Me Facebook Competition Winner!

Well the Facebook competition was a great success. We had 59 people submit photos to the competition. In the end 1 winner was chosen. Stephen Holman.

Anyway as promised I have spent the last 4 days working on his image and I am pleased with the final picture.

And here is the original image.

Here are the WIPs. (works in progress)

First the rough sketch. Just to give me an idea where everything is.

Next, darker lines are added.

Line art is neatened ready for the colouring.

Base colours are added.

More red is added to the skin and then shadeing soft shading is added.

Background is blocked in then slightly blurred to make Stephen pop out more.

Legs quick draw session

I was up till late last night on posemaniacs and I made a discovery. I am not confident with drawing legs. Naturally this is a problem that I intend to fix so I decided to go back to the loomis studies and really work on legs.

Hope to get more done tonight.

Samurai Jack Fan Art.

Imagine FX are holding their Monthly art contest. The brief of the contest is "Kids TV Grown Up" I picked a show that was very close to my heart, Samurai Jack.

For those of you who don't know Samurai Jack was about a samurai who fought an evil wizard. When the final blow was about to be struck the evil wizard (Aku) created a rip in time and flung the samurai into the future. I think the opening explains all you need to know.

This show was like nothing I had ever seen before. The story was extremely well written but the thing that has always stuck in my mind was how experimental it was. The art direction was simply  -->
genius but one seen will stick with me as a reminder of what and animated show can do that live action cannot. This is the reason I still watch cartoons.

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The scene left so much of an impact on my and I do think that in a subconscious level it influenced my decision on becoming an illustrator. This is what Samurai Jack was about.

I am so glad that IFX made me relive this precious memory.

So here is my work. I wanted to keep with the vector like style because that was one of the things that gave the show its charm.  Along the way I changed the thumbnail, as the composition was not strong enough. The idea was that Jack would be an old man yet his foe would remain very young.

Ideas complete I continued to illustrator. The next part was kind of new to me. Normally I would create the line art here but the thing with Samurai Jack was line art was barely used. The way the characters stood out was through high contrasting backgrounds. This  eliminated the need for black lines. -->

The only time I would use lines was if the contrast on its own was not great enough. Examples of this are the chin line and the knee and sleeve of his Gi.

Next I added the facial features. I also added liver spots, wrinkles and grey hair. The moustache was added to aid the composition.

Next I worked on his sword. I wanted to make a small modification with the blade. I gave it a wavy 2 tone look to create an interesting shape. Detail was added to the handle of the sword.

Next I redraw Aku in photoshop to get his expression of pain. I then import that layer into illustrator before working on his outline. I moved his form to  emphasize the composition. -->

Next with the drawing of Aku's face I set to work on the details. Most vibrant colours will contrast and stand out against a white background. I also create his flaming eyebrows, beard and I fill in the loser half of his body. Just a simple black for this.

I import this to photoshop and get to work on the finishing touches. The gradient backdrop has noise added to it and I also add shards of Aku's body being flung.

I am really pleased with how this turned out. Much different to my usual work process. I still have a long way to go but this is feels like one of my strongest pieces. I feel more confident with colours now.

I will be working on studies very soon.

Just thought I would post the 2 smaller versions that I will on IFX.

  

Posemaniac Studies

Yet more quick Posemaniac studis. This will more than likly go on for a bit whilst I finish off a competition piece. I will upload the Competition piece with walthrough when complete.

Posemaniac studies

More posemainac studies.

Loomis, Bridgman and Posemaniacs Studies

I am currently on holiday. This update is just some quick studies over one night. Studies were taken from Loomis, Bridgman and Posemaniacs.
No real text to go with this.

Continue Manga Fan Art

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Continue Manga Fan Art.

As most of you have gathered by now I love to draw. When I am not drawing I tend to spend a lot of time on youtube. One of my favorite channels is Continue. Figured I would do portraits of the hosts of Continue as a thank you for entertaining me (or distracting me depending on your point of view).

For all of you who don’t know Continue is a web show featuring three guys playing video games. They play a selected game for around thirty minutes (all the time bickering among each other XD) and after that time they talk abit about their experience and decide if they would continue or game over. The show is very funny and has some great recurring jokes like Epic maneuver (queue nightwish.)

Be sure to check out their videos and subscribe to their channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/continueshow?feature=results_main

Lets get started on the tutorial.

First step is as always mock up a quick sketch. I actually messed up some of the faces here but the idea is readable. So long as the image is readable then I can always come back and neaten up areas I don’t like.

After neatening up the image it is time to import to illustrator to clean up the line art.  I feel I am getting quicker at this as I have figured out my personal way of dealing with illustrator. Line art complete it is now time to import the lines into photoshop so I can begin the colour process.

I lay down the base colours and then adjust the brightness and saturation. This is to ensure that the colours are distinct from one another. I then tidy up the colours erasing any parts that may have gone over the lines. Each colour gets its own layer.

A transparency lock is placed on each layer for the shading. This is to prevent me colouring outside the lines thus saving me time and aggravation. Shades and small highlights are applied.

Little touches are added before I work on the sofa. For the glasses I drew small white lines for the reflection. Beards did not translate well so I focused more on heavy stubble. A grey colour was applied with a soft round brush followed by specs of dark colour to give some texture. I tried to match the font but I could not find the correct one. This was the closest I could find.

For the sofa I wanted to try something I recently learnt from watching “Eden of the east”. In this anime the backgrounds were painted with a very distinct look to them. I used a hard round brush flattened. I then rotated the brush to a forty-five degree angle. I layered the lighter tones to give the sofa a plump shape. I added a darker layer with the same brush fore the dents in the sofa. This gave a really nice effect. Will defiantly do this again.

I really enjoyed working on this. My workflow seems to be improving as I feel as if I am getting faster.

I do think my shading needs a bit more work but I feel like I am developing my own style. Having more fun doing these as well.

Quick notice:

I will be away on holiday next week so no drawing tutorial for 2 weeks. These take a while to produce and I will not have the time.

Fear not I will be writing two reviews for the weeks I am not around. They will be published through an automated system so if I do not respond straight away it is not because I am ignoring you it is be cause I am away from my desk.

Normal service will resume when I return.

L8r all.