Oh Yeah...

...an update on the Illustration Academy piece.

Using...NIBS??!

I was recently informed about a nib that would possibly convert me from brushes, or at least use something else besides them for my ink work. I was skeptical about it, since I've had some iffy experiences with nibs in my undergrad work. But sure enough, after giving the Mitchell Gillott #303 test run, I've come to this conclusion:

This thing owns harder than any tool that I used for ink thus far.

I'll be looking do some fresh stuff with ink in the near future, but in the meantime, here's some doodles I did at work with the nib and my dirty, inky fingers.

Illustration Academy Hopeful

This piece (still in progress) is slated to be my entry in a contest to win a scholarship to next year's Illustration Academy. It's a bit of a departure from my usual working methods. I've still got some noodling to do, so I'll be posting the finished piece, along with some more "Monster City" comics a bit later.

Even More Monsters

These were a bit overdue, but I finally got around to them.

PLOP Teaser

This is from the first issue of "PLOP", slated for release sometime this summer. It's a self-published comic zine that'll feature work from Gino Barzizza, John Lee, Alex "Warble" Harrison, and myself.

More Monsters

Monster City Residents

These were a lot of fun to draw, and I couldn't have done it without the help of a handful of awesome volunteers. I hope that more people offer their likenesses. I want a village of these guys.

Coming Soon...

This was done as a special request :)

Monster City Blues

This is a short comic I finished up today.

Whew!

It's been a good minute since I've posted anything, mainly because I've been working on some projects that are either beyond my liberties to post just yet or still in progress. Rest assured, I'm still making stuff. In due time...

Ptera

I've been busy working overtime hours, as well as on a cool project with Live From Memphis, but in the meantime, this is a follow-up to my previous dinosaur-related post.

Ted

This was a sketch I made during down time at work. It's based from a photo from the uber-talented Brigitte Lacombe.

Photoshop Process Post

This is the overdue follow-up to my previous process post. This is a very simple walkthrough of how I typically color images in Photoshop. Specifically, I'll be going over this guy:

I started out with three separate drawings, a line art drawing, a "shadow/texture" drawing, and a skeletal drawing.

The line drawing came first, followed by the other two that were made with the help of a lightbox. It's important to get everything lined up pretty well at this step. This is like a real world version of the layering process that one would deal with in Photoshop.

I scan all three drawings as 8-bit grayscales at 300 dpi. By scanning at grayscale, I'm saving myself from the headache of dealing with HUGE files and tedious color management issues. I would opt for 600dpi, but my limited hard drive is forcing me to skimp a little. The line art and texture drawings seen above are after I adjusted the levels.

I only made minor adjustments to the skeleton drawing, as I wanted to retain the texture of the paper. That's why you see some fuzz at the top of it. A lot of people (understandably) go for stark black and white contrast, as it makes coloring MUCH easier, but I've become a fan of the residual grit from scanning.

The above image is what those layers look like composited in Photoshop. I left the line drawing as a locked "background" layer, and dragged the other two drawings over it as multiply layers, which I employ a good deal in my digital work. Right now both multiply layers are at reduced opacities to illustrate how the layers line up.

After I'm satisfied with this part of picture, I change the mode of the picture to RGB, since it's still in grayscale. I also hide the texture and skeleton layers for now.

I used the lasso tool and paint bucket to fill in the line art layer with a base color on a separate layer. This is a multiply layer as well. As you can probably tell, I've also applied a radial gradient (USE GRADIENTS SPARINGLY!) with the base color which will help with the visibility of certain details down the road.

I then lowered the opacity of the base color layer, and began adding secondary colors on a separate multiply layer to create more contrast and to fill in areas that I missed with first round of coloring. After this step, I hid the secondary color layer and increased the opacity of the base color layer. I also bring back the skeleton drawing.

As mentioned before, I retained the texture of this drawing because it's gonna work in my favor with this next step. With the skeleton layer selected, I adjusted the color balance to make it more analogous with the base color.

I brought back the other layers, adjusting the opacity for each as necessary. The eye of the T-Rex was being obscured by the skeleton and texture layers, so I took the soft edge eraser tool at a low opacity to both layers around that area. The texture layer was also converted from a multiply layer to a soft light layer. This way, the same implied surface could be retained without overpowering the image.

Finally, for good measure, I colored the lines by adding a screen layer over the line art layer. I used a sampled color from the drawing and used the brush tool to go over the areas that I wanted to adjust.

THE END! (for now...)

Zombie Luv

This was inspired by the call girl ads in the Memphis Flyer that are embarrassingly close to one my favorite sections of that paper.

MILIEU Opening

Following up on this post, these are pictures from the opening of "Milieu" this past Friday. The ten artists-strong show brought in an huge crowd which was, considering there were so many other events, a huge testament to the supportive community of artists in Memphis. I'll avoid getting too mushy...