Illustration Development Blog

Just uh bunch of heads..

2009-07-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

Today I just sketched out more heads.. really good for just getting my brain and hand workin.. did half of these in the morning, half in the afternoon.. I think tomorrow I'll actual start rendering the eyes in.. so they won't all be in hard dramatic light.. even tho hard dramatic light is awesome.

Anatomy notes / prop studies..

2009-07-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

Ahh so today.. went to coffee shop.. warmed up by doin a few heads in pencill (one zombie for good measure)

Took some anatomy notes.. I haven't written them to instruct others.. I've took them so I'd remember any cool technique or order of structure so I can remember it..

I like a lot of what I jotted down.. until I figure out something better or learn something smarter, These notes are on track.

Finally.. yesterday.. I did some prop studies or stuff around my house.. (well outside of my house) mostly just keeping up with waterbrush.. It's a lot of fun to use.

So that's that for another post.. Here's some progress.. I'll beat myself up this weekend over what I draw between then and now.

Jumping ahead.. just for fun..

2009-07-14T21:38:00.001-07:00

Goofing off with a test page (web comic formatting)

So yeah.. here is how I laid out a test page.. lots of mistakes lots of interesting accidents.. most things noted.. mostly.. my inking is SLOPPY!!

Some things that I like:
1) A gradient for LARGE sky drops.. flatter colors for smaller frames and foreground elements.
2) Putting most foreground elements practically silhouetted.

Things I hate:
1) Ink quality
2) Waterbrush stroke not consistant
3) Talk bubbles and such have inconsistant formatting with art, and text isn't optimized from frame space.

I did a bunch of quick sketches with a lot of notes I wanna throw up.. it's late so maybe not tonight.. but definitely tomorrow!

Work Post One: Defined pencil and pen styles

2009-07-13T17:46:00.001-07:00

I apologize if this blog layout is messy.. The post tool is kind of a pain to work with, moving around images and what not. But here we go.. post one.. lets do it.

Materials Used

Pencils working with head shape, and definition of eyes, nose, mouth..etc..
Some of them suck, some are in the basic direction were I'd like to go. The undead pencils are
more for just warm up and fun.. because..lets face it.. what artist doesn't like to draw skulls.

Felt Tip marker with a waterbrush.. Micron 0.25 used for additive thin detailing post waterbrush.

So this is three 1 hour sessions at the coffee shop by work.. what I want to refine is:
Process of pencil lines for facial attributes, tightening how the simple lines are rendered, and to build a hierarchy from that.. Refining the head shapes I like to define not only phyiscal stature but also personality.

The process of rendering the pen and waterbrush started very well, and I would like to continue that method:
1) Lay down felt tip large strokes
2) brush in shadow
3) Use painters helper to gain back any specular or highlighted area from the brush.
4) Go back over piece with 0.25 pen to push smaller thinner details around the larger strokes (when applicable)

So thats my first batch.. I'm pretty sure I got the thoughts I wanted in here.. I'll be walking around town town this coming weekend doing 3 to five minute sketches of environmental stuff (props, structure pieces..etc..)

Test Image

2009-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

Quick doodle of the Clown Prince of Crime.
Click to enlarge.

Test Page / About blog

2009-07-08T18:51:00.001-07:00

This Blog is for the development of my skill with illustration, specifically sequential art.

I'm currently in the process of defining a "style" as an illustrator. This will be where I dump all experimentation and notes on progress to figure that out.

I'm new at this whole "blog" thing.. So we'll see how it goes.