Archive for the 'sketching' Tag

  1. Transforming Hands

    I promise to stop talking about this soon, but bear with me… I’m still excited. One of the quite obvious benefits of using a tablet that hadn’t quite sunk in is how you can pull bits of a sketch around.

    I was working on a character sketch last night, and finished drawing one of the hands. It was quite respectable, obviously hand-like and not particularly mutated or alien. However, only once I’d finished did I notice that it was a little bit too big and in the wrong place. So… I dragged a marquee around it to select, scaled it down, then pulled it into a better position.

    I guess you could look at this as cheating, and that I should practice until I can sketch it right straight off. It just seems like a great idea if you’ve drawn something you’re happy with, but slightly wrong or out of position.

    Another quite cool thing is to use different layers to try out alternate versions for particular parts of a sketch. So I could create a couple of alternate hand sketches for the same character, then use layer comps to look at the different versions and decide how to proceed.

    I’m still playing around with some of this, but from my experience so far it seems like sketching directly to a PC opens up quite a lot of flexibility. I’m also wondering about scanning images, fading them right down to use in the background as a template. At this stage I’m just trying to emulate some of the styles I like, so this seems like a great way to learn.

    Posted at 12:08 pm on 19/10/06

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    Comments: 2

  2. Fat Tablet

    I finally got around to ordering an A3 graphics tablet, which arrived last night. I’m so happy I’d be purring right now if it wouldn’t get me strange looks and alienation.

    I ended up ordering the Wacom Intuos3 A3 Wide tablet, and I’m very happy. It’s actually much larger than I’d visualised, but it’s delicious to work with. I was talking recently about how sketching directly with a tablet is tricky, but more flexible. It was tricky because I was using a tiny tablet with a large widescreen monitor. I think I actually prefer sketching with the new tablet to using paper.

    I went through the whole process with a picture last night, going from rough sketches, using Illustrator to produce an ink outline, then exporting to Photoshop for colouring and shading. The Illustrator inking technique I mentioned yesterday definately seems to be the best way to produce the ink outline, and the whole thing was so much less painful than trying to achieve the same with a small tablet.

    I want to practice some more and produce a few pictures I’m proud of before posting any work, but it’s coming along…

    Posted at 11:27 am on 18/10/06

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    Comments: None

  3. Train Sketches

    I’ve finished on my Illustrator cramming for a while, so thinking about what to focus on next. I think I’m going to get back on track with cartoons and photography (along with WPF, WCF and Atlas!).

    I’m trying to get in the habit of sketching on the train so that I get more regular practice, but it’s sometimes a little hard to get into. You basically have to be willing for everyone to see that you’re sketching cartoons (and not very well). Lay on top shaky train-hand and it’s not always that comfortable. However I think it’s better to be improving and learning something cool and have the occassional person judge you.

    This weekend I’m thinking about picking up a wide-angle lens, taking a load of dramatic street scenes, then putting a little cartoon version of me around town. If the results are worthy of attention then I’ll post them up.

    Posted at 12:08 pm on 13/10/06

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    Comments: 4

  4. Cartoons

    I was working through an article at the weekend based on building up a videogame scene in Photoshop, combining a realistic photographic backdrop with cartoon characters in the foreground. This was so much fun, I’ve decided I should really be able to make little cartoon people from scratch.

    I haven’t really done any drawing or sketching for a really long time, but this seems like a really fun thing to get my head around. I also hadn’t really been exposed to some of the techniques you can use in producing cartoon work digitally, so I’m currently reading through Digital Manga Techniques and starting to learn. I made my first manga character last night, and it didn’t turn out to be the monster I was expecting.

    As I don’t particularly have a technique yet, it seemed like I should jump straight in and learn to work directly on a PC using a tablet. I know a lot of people sketch on paper, scan the images and work from there. However it seems (to me) that it’s so much more versatile to work directly.

    I think sketching with a tablet probably takes longer to get the hang of, but you can do all kinds of things like move bits of the sketch around, rework sections, undo bad strokes etc. The technique I was trying involved making a very rough sketch, taking the opacity of the layer down to about 30%, then sketching it again on a new layer. By repeating this several times you can refine the design, until it’s ready to use in creating an ink outline for the final piece.

    I also love how you can go back when you’re finished, and see the image gradually building up by making each layer visible. You can also try out different colours and shading styles, and keep the alternate versions. All of this is generally much less scary than working on paper where everything you do is a little more permanent.

    I know it will take a while before I get the hang of this, but I’d love to be able to produce designs that combine elements of photo realism with cartoon drawing. I’ve also decided to get a lot more serious about photography to cover the other aspect of this.

    Now I just need about twice as much free time :)

    Posted at 12:31 pm on 19/07/06

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    Comments: 8