Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Turtle!
So, I sat down to do a piece for Illustration Friday and ended up making this Turtle Instead. I think he's cute!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Spinning Day!
So, another day of Spinning has come and gone. There were some good photo ops this weekend, but unfortunately the stars of the show were in a very, very dark barn.. and they didn't want to sit still. So, we'll start with the actual art shots first; then the cute ones!
Homespun
Yes?
Intrigued
Homespun
Yes?
Intrigued
Friday, March 20, 2009
Illustration Friday - 2
So, Howdy to the folks popping in from Illustration Firday! Welcome to my little corner of the world. Its still small, I only started the blog last month. Feel free to check around in the small archives, and if you see something you like say something!
Constructive Criticism is also always welcome.
That being said; this was my piece last week for Illustration Friday. Our Digital Painting assignment was to take part in this week's theme, Legendary. I always think of Myths and Legends.. and that takes me to Constellations, so I had to choose my favorite; Orion! Overall I'm really pleased with how the piece turned out.
Constructive Criticism is also always welcome.
That being said; this was my piece last week for Illustration Friday. Our Digital Painting assignment was to take part in this week's theme, Legendary. I always think of Myths and Legends.. and that takes me to Constellations, so I had to choose my favorite; Orion! Overall I'm really pleased with how the piece turned out.
Illustration Friday - Legendary: How
Someone expressed interest in how I did the Orion piece... and since I usually do stop and save along the way, and throw up the various images- Why not!
I started off with Line Drawings on paper, for each element. Orion, the 2 dogs and Taurus. Once I had a feel for how I wanted them to look, I usually would scan them and trace them with a brush in photoshop. (I have a tablet, makes it easy!) However; my scanner decided to stop working.. so for this one, I laid the line drawings down on the tablet, and traced them that way! It made for some interesting gaps in the artwork.
Anyway, once I had the basic gist of the image into photoshop, I went in and filled out the lines. That gave me something like this:
However, that's not a very smooth looking image. So, next step was to go in and clean up the lines. Oh, by the way, I did the line drawings on a separate layer from the background so that they had a transparent background. Anyhow! Once the lines were cleaned up, it looked something like this:
Once all 4 elements were completed, I started playing around with their placement. I had an idea of how I wanted it to look, but you know how getting things -precisely- in the right spot can be!
Each element had its own "Color" layer beneath the line work, where I blocked in solid colors. Surprisingly enough, Taurus and one of the dogs were originally red and the second dog was shades of gold and brown. And, well- you can see the colors Orion was!
I ended up setting the 3 Animal's Color Layers to a lower transparency, and their layer blending mode to Luminousity. Orion's layer also got it's opacity lowered, but not by nearly as much as the animals.
For the line work itself, I selected each layer and hit "lock transparent pixels" and then went at them with a white brush, then slowly added shades of gray with a low transparency black brush.
The bigger, glowing stars were on their own layers, with some different blending mode options. I played around with inner and out glow and shadows until I had a look I liked. The stars in the background were on still another layer, without any special effects. Just a good swipe with the blur tool!
Anyway, that's the basics of it! Hope that sates the interest of some folks, if you have more questions feel free to ask!
I started off with Line Drawings on paper, for each element. Orion, the 2 dogs and Taurus. Once I had a feel for how I wanted them to look, I usually would scan them and trace them with a brush in photoshop. (I have a tablet, makes it easy!) However; my scanner decided to stop working.. so for this one, I laid the line drawings down on the tablet, and traced them that way! It made for some interesting gaps in the artwork.
Anyway, once I had the basic gist of the image into photoshop, I went in and filled out the lines. That gave me something like this:
However, that's not a very smooth looking image. So, next step was to go in and clean up the lines. Oh, by the way, I did the line drawings on a separate layer from the background so that they had a transparent background. Anyhow! Once the lines were cleaned up, it looked something like this:
Once all 4 elements were completed, I started playing around with their placement. I had an idea of how I wanted it to look, but you know how getting things -precisely- in the right spot can be!
Each element had its own "Color" layer beneath the line work, where I blocked in solid colors. Surprisingly enough, Taurus and one of the dogs were originally red and the second dog was shades of gold and brown. And, well- you can see the colors Orion was!
I ended up setting the 3 Animal's Color Layers to a lower transparency, and their layer blending mode to Luminousity. Orion's layer also got it's opacity lowered, but not by nearly as much as the animals.
For the line work itself, I selected each layer and hit "lock transparent pixels" and then went at them with a white brush, then slowly added shades of gray with a low transparency black brush.
The bigger, glowing stars were on their own layers, with some different blending mode options. I played around with inner and out glow and shadows until I had a look I liked. The stars in the background were on still another layer, without any special effects. Just a good swipe with the blur tool!
Anyway, that's the basics of it! Hope that sates the interest of some folks, if you have more questions feel free to ask!
Finishing out the Calendar...
So, I started posting my Calendar Illustrations last month; and after setting up my PC again I was able to grab the rest of them! So, I give you... the Complete Calendar.
Tree Spot
A tree Illustration I did, from a photo reference I took, for a Friend's business card. Drawn via Tablet in Photoshop.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A leaping off point...
So, working in my Digital Painting class. I sat down and did a few real paintings, and... the first 2 are being scraped, and I'm going to work from the third one. Time to go back to the drawing board!
But, in any event. I haven't posted in a little bit; so. Here's my jumping off point.
Time to move onwards and upwards.
*Edit: I just realized that because of the angle I sat at while painting; the perspective on the horse's head is off. WOW.
But, in any event. I haven't posted in a little bit; so. Here's my jumping off point.
Time to move onwards and upwards.
*Edit: I just realized that because of the angle I sat at while painting; the perspective on the horse's head is off. WOW.
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