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...

Momentum Exhibition

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to submit work into a show that was being coordinated by CODA, an arts organization from Rhodes College. It was unexpected and definitely an eleventh hour call. The invitation came two days prior to the opening, and I was at a lack of stuff that was ready for exhibition. It was suggested that I perform a live drawing during the show, which was fine but that meant coming up with a idea and making it fit in an undefined space.

Yeah...

I quickly made some sketches out, confirmed how much wall space I had, and prepared for two intense hours of speed drawing. Here are the photos.

If you were interested in seeing this process in motion, my friend Elisha recorded this nifty video of the drawing as it progressed throughout the evening.

More gallery updates to come :)