First Thing-a-Day, Ringy-Dingy

So, my first thingy for thing-a-day is up and posted. 

 

Reference courtesy characterdesigns.com. (nudity warning)

There's so much wonderful stuff to see, I can't imagine being able to see all of it.  I think there's over five hundred people signed up for it?  That's like a small village.  And the kind of talent pool available -- I actually wonder if we'd make a viable, real-life village.  I wonder what it would be like to live there.  So long as I didn't have to build my own home -- I'm rubbish at carpentry.

Anyway, I had some fits getting this sketch done.  Couple false starts. Then I relaxed 'cos it's supposed to be fun, and it worked out at that point.  Forty-five minutes in mypaint while listening to a selection of songs from musicals.

SuperDanny!

So.  They've got a new Superman in the works, and a new actor to play the Man of Steel.  Didn't the last Superman movie come out just a few years ago?

Anyway, got to talking with the husband about Superman actors, and he suggested a couple that I thought could be interesting. 

Danny Devito.  I think that would be awesome.  I like Danny Devito.  And they should cast Rhea Perlman as Lois Lane.

Oh gawd.  That would so kick butt.

I even did up a little quick sketch in Autodesk Sketchbook Express with Devito wearing the cape.  Please excuse the uber-crappy quality; I did it in ten minutes.  Very sketchy quality, no thought to composition or color theory, just a quick, quick scrawl to get the idea down.

Then the husband suggested another actor:  John Cleese.

I'd pay twice the going movie ticket prices to see that.

Sorry, Mr. Devito.  We still love you though.

Learning Curves and the Like

I'm currently puttering around on posterous.com in preparation for thing-a-day and right now I'm trying to set things so that they publish to my blog simultaneously.  After all, why go to the trouble of logging into two sites, and futzing with arranging the elements of one's post twice when I can just go whap!pow!zam! and get it all done once?

 

Oh, and abusing colors?  Never gets old.  Until, of course, it does.

 

Meanwhile, this is what I'm up to:

 

 

(reference photo courtesy of atistatplay and can be found here.)

 

I thought I'd revisit this particular piece since it was done over three years ago.  I certainly hope I got better!  This sketch was done in Autodesk Sketchbook Express, which was part of the bundle of software that I got along with my new Intuos.  I'm not quite sure where I'm going to go with this; most likely I'll continue to develop it into a digital painting (probably in the GIMP).

 

One more week to thing-a-day, and I haven't a thing to wear!

 

All I Want for Xmas --

My husband is a mean ol' man. I adore him. And I'd rather draw him a thousand thousand times than keep his photo in my wallet. He's a patient model, and very game for anything.

And did I mention he's a mean ol' man?

He came home from work on the 23rd with a bag from Best Buy which he put under the tree, after informing me that it was for me. I was a little surprised, simply because earlier in the month he'd asked me what I wanted for Xmas, and I told him. As far as I know, downloadable audiobooks don't come in Best Buy bags. I looked askance at the package.

"What is it?" I asked.

He smiled at me brightly. "It's a present!" he replied in a chipper tone designed solely to annoy.

No matter how much wheedling, whining, whinging, asking, prodding, needling, pouting or otherwise making a pest of myself, he remained stalwart and refused to answer my question.

Though he did offer to let me peek. But really, where's the fun in that?

So, I waited (im)patiently, until the husband came home from Midnight Mass, at which time I was permitted to (finally!) open up my gift, which was way cooler than what I got him.

The marvelous bastard got me a Wacom Intuos 4.

Improvement

Just to show how far I've come since May of '09:

(stock courtesy mizzd-stock)

When I did this piece, it was the best thing I'd done to date digitally.  This was done in OpenCanvas 1.1 with a graphics tablet.  I didn't know how to floodfill the canvas in OC, so in order to introduce tone to the canvas I had to ruddy well paint it in.  I did this in a single layer, in one hour.  Even then I was aware that the likeness simply wasn't there, but I was quite happy with it.  It looked sorta-kinda-almost realistic.  Yay me.

Recently I discovered OC's ability to create event files of the paintings one creates in it, so I went back through and watched myself paint.  When I came to this piece though, I was horrified by how bad the initial drawing was.  Was I --?  Did I --?  Eek.

I'd forgotten how that drawing looked since it had gotten painted over in the process.  Compare to the drawing of my recent self-portrait:

Granted, painting the self-portrait took several hours, and as a result, it's a great deal more polished -- but my drawing technique's improved quite a bit. Even now, with my hour-long (not quite) daily sessions of painting, my drawings have more information; are less . . . slapdash.

Thank you, Evil Professor Rex.

(note to self:  must draw a portrait of Evil Professor Rex as the supervillain he is.)

Fall Self Portrait, Complete

After several hours with the GIMP  I've finally finished my self-portrait. It took more than four hours, but less than six, I think, for the color stage. So, all in all, I think it might have taken somewhere between seven and ten hours. Not all at once -- there's a lot of getting up and walking away involved.

Of course, now that I've slaved over it, I suddenly feel the desire to become an abstract expressionist.

Ducks, Water, and Pixels

I've been working sporadically on this these past few days. But I've been experimenting with other painting styles and techniques, so I swear I haven't been just goofing off!



I wanted to try some other techniques and tutorials, and obviously wouldn't be able to do them on a piece that's already in progress! I'm so impatient sometimes.

I found it very interesting that I paint very differently digitally than when I'm painting traditionally (whether oils or acrylics). But on some levels, I really feel like I'm taking to it like a duck to water. Okay, I may not be swimming pretty like a water ballerina, but at least I'm dog paddling! I've always struggled with painting, it doesn't come as easily to me as drawing does. So I'm quite (pleasantly!) surprised by my initial forays into digital painting.

Sadly, I've been kinda neglecting my sketchbook lately. I guess I really need to work on that. And maybe a few things for the upcoming 9X12 Show.

My computer is a wicked, wanton strumpet. Or maybe I am.

A Few More Hour's Work

And more progress on the digital portrait.

Here's after about a couple more hours' work -- I thought I'd show it with and without the sketch side by side for easier comparison. Having the sketch on top really showed me that I needed more darks. I've been trying not to be so hesitant with this portrait -- hence all the crazy colors, I guess.




And after a couple more hours of work, I've pretty much dispensed with the sketch -- it was covering more than helping. I'm still bringing it up, but less and less as work continues. I've also blocked in something remotely resembling the final background:





I'm hoping to be finished with it in a couple more days. If it doesn't finish me first.

Nah, I'm having fun.

Digital Painting! Mothers, lock up your computers!

Just to show I'm not being a complete bum: I've been playing around with the GIMP for digital painting, and have a couple progress shots of what I'm doing so far.

Without sketch:





With sketch (as a multiply layer overtop):





Trust me, they're less rubbishy than the oil paintings I've been doing lately. This is after about two and a half, or maybe three hours? I'm not sure, I haven't exactly kept track.

Just to prove I haven't just been sitting around baking cookies.

Ooh, cookies.

Um, gotta go.