1001000 1101001

As continuance to the previous post, I'll present the rasterized drawing this time around. To recap, it was sketched on plain paper, scanned and then colorized in Photoshop. Surprisingly, the picture looked rather plain on paper, but when I scanned it and fiddled with the contrast, shadowy areas started appearing here and there. I instantly thought "Whee! Instant shadowing!", but as always there were drawbacks involved, i.e. more contrast, more shadows, more cleaning up afterward as the faux-shadows spilled out into places they shouldn't. The eyes, serial number and hand decals were added into the blue bot, whereas the green scanner light and knee decals were added to the yellow bot. Only the eyes (where applicable) on both bots use filter-effects this time around. The serial numbers and knee decals were done via the text tool, and the hand decals were whipped up with the shape tool. What surprised me about the shape tool was that one couldn't automatically set a stroke to a shape, and one needed to add it via blending options. A new trick I tried this time around was the warp function, where I could apply some perspective distortion to the text and decals.

Present in the picture are two bots: the one on the right is built for surveillance and exploration, and the one one the right is designed for uh... political persuasion, I guess? I'm relatively satisfied as to how they turned out, although I can't express any particularities that I'm most proud of. I can pinpoint a few dislikes easily, however. The thumbs on the blue bot are too 2D and look like paper flaps. The blue bot seems to have a problem with it's posture as well, and it seems like it might fall on it's behind at any moment. The side of the head on the yellow bot was gone over without much of a plan, and it shows. On a side note, this picture is the largest of all others to date, with an original width of ~1900 pixels and a height of ~1600 pixels.

They dream in ASCII

Aye Aye!

Last weekend I tried drawing on paper; mainly sketches and such. I ended up scanning two drawings. I planned on making one a vectorized drawing, and the other a rasterized drawing. The vectorized one, in this case, is a collection of eyes. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but a character's eyes are a thing I really like to focus on. As it stands, I have a tendency to continuously draw the same general type of eye, so this time I tried drawing several different ones to see if I can vary my approach somewhat. The original drawing has a handful of eyes that are missing from this picture, as I wanted to present a smaller set to avoid cluttering up the picture. It took about six hours or so to finish, from sketch to vectorized version.

I encountered a peculiar problem when trying to export the picture from Inkscape. It appears that, at least on my Windows platform, Inkscape filters tend to be a bit on the unstable side. This is readily apparent when applying a heavy filter to an object (or a group of objects) and then trying to resume work. The program will start to exhibit noticeable lag, especially when zooming in and out. This wasn't the main issue here, however. I noticed that when I tried to export the original image (over a thousand pixels in width and over seven hundred in height), the filters were lost during export. Luckily I only used three simple noise filters, which were light and weren't really necessary in the first place, so potentially I could have done without them. The solution was to export the picture in a smaller, more manageable size. This kept the filters intact.

Mirrors of the Soul

Vectorama

I remember mentioning that I entered a logo competition earlier this year, so I thought I'd post about it now. I didn't win (as should be expected at this point), and as such I can freely publish my entry here. It was meant for a certain union of university students, and was to promote such values as co-operation, learning and responsibility (among a few others). Without further ado, the picture itself:

I tried to emphasize all said virtues primarily with my colour choices: blue for responsibility, cooperation and openness - yellow for the rest. The hands should portray cooperation and openness, with the abstract book in the background signifying learning. It took about four hours to finish.

I'll just leave this picture here as a bonus! It's a result of my fiddling about with vector art, inspired by logo-art and socialist propaganda. It's a logo for a fictional space mining company. It took an hour or two to finish. Both this picture and the competition entry were drawn as vectors, with no freehand drawing involved.

Kis Kis Kis

Previously - I was somewhat surprised to learn that there isn't a suitable word in English for what my new hobby means in my native language. After some searching online and otherwise, "Fitness Boxing" is the best I can come up with. It's like boxing, but without actual bouts with another person. It's mostly about exercising one's muscles. Even though my arms feel like lead bars after a short while after each session, surprisingly the feeling doesn't last long. It's said that the impact from punching the sack relaxes the muscles, thus leaving less strain to deal with later.

Good God, has it really been this long since my last post? Tempus Fugit and all that, I suppose. Work and holidays have been taking up my time, not to mention vidya games (but that's pretty much a given in my case). This is the final entry for the sketch-stretch. I won't give any clues for this one, suffice to say that it doesn't directly refer to what it portrays.

It took me ages to complete the damn picture. It was my first encounter in drawing fur, and it was far more time-consuming than I anticipated. In fact, I hadn't really considered the ordeal at all; I think I was focused so much on the line-art (in my usual fashion) and thought that the fur was simply a coat of colour. To make matters worse, I had a moment with where I was satisfied with the work so far, but I had to go and make a little tweak here, a little correction there, and soon found myself sinking easily over a double amount of time into the drawing. I honestly lost count on how may hours I spent on it, but let's say around eight.

So, enjoy the thing I guess. I still think it looks like a damn mutant, but by God I wasted too many hours of my life on it not to showcase it. At the very least, I can leave it here as a warning as to how not to draw fur / animals / similar themes. That being said, I think I might switch to vector-art for a while, as I promised a few posts back. Let's see how that goes, shall we?

Sketch-Stretch 5

Falcon Punch

Previously - Made evident from the Assassin's Creed titles and symbols, the game in question had kept me rather busy. I should say "games", as the series consists of four titles up to date, with a fifth due to release near the end of this year. I should also add that games in particular have always kept me busy, and are a large part of my life. I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore gamer or some such extremist, but I still manage to spend an awful lot of time glued to the ol' monitor.

I was not that pleased with what resulted from the sketching this time around. I had done the line art and base coloring before taking a break, and upon returning to work I noticed that I had lost my reference picture. In frustration, I hurried the picture to some form of concluded state as fast as I could. I did try out working with a large image this time (1000 x 1000 px), and I think it shows in the overall smoothness of the image. Larger files do take up way more space in source-files, however. I turned out to be an exercise in shadowing once again, and I could have been more brazen had I retained the reference image.

Sketch-Stretch 4

Fluency in Pizza-Italian

Previously - A pet project of mine, involving a certain seal in space. I'm co-authoring it by doing the coding, sounds and animation. The rest I've left to more capable hands. It's an avoider-type game where you score points by collecting various consumables while dodging dangerous objects. As soon as I finish up the sounds, add some effects & animations and get the power-ups working, version 1.0 should be ready for the public.

The picture below was suppose to contain radically different items than what is currently featured, but ultimately this was the most consistent choice to make. It features a recognizable logo that I whipped up in Inkspace and then imported into the picture. The texts tend to immediately give away what the picture is referring to, but not in the sense in exposing the main subject. It took a whopping 6 - 8 hours to do by my estimate, and involves the prominent use of pattern overlays and bevel filters.

Sketch-Stretch 3

Spaaace!

Previously - My thesis work has kept me pretty busy for these past four months. So much so that I've neglected all other studies excluding it. It's taken me roughly a year to finish, due to work getting in the way. With a total length of 65 pages, it's now awaiting review. I hope to have it out of the way by the summer of this year.

This pic was drawn (or micromanaged into life..) with vectors. As previously advertised, it was made with Inkscape. I primarily used the straight-and-bezier-line-tool  (or whatever it's actually called) to draw a lot of the shapes, occasionally cheating by making shapes out of various fonts. A lot of gradients went into this one. I'm worrying that I'm overdoing it with them however, as I'm not too good with subtlety. I used two filters - one on the main ship body and one on the lights attached to it. Filters drastically slow down any operations within Inkscape, so I use them sparingly. The starry background was made in Photoshop, as adding noise is apparently a raster technique. It took me roughly four to six hours to finish. Much of this time was spent fiddling with filters, gradients and such, rather than creating shapes.

Sketch-Stretch 2

An Illustrated Guide to Life

I'd have hoped to have posted this yesterday on May 1st, but I wasn't able to reach the necessary art files. Long story short - It's been a busy time in my life. Rather than explaining the stuff that's been keeping me busy, I'd rather try showing it instead. It is my intention to draw five subjects over five weeks, but let's see how that goes. I tried out the open-source vector illustrator Inkscape during the weekend. What a positive surprise! I was expecting an uphill battle but it was a rather smooth ride instead. I've tried my hand at Adobe Illustrator by way of drawing logos and GUI elements, so I wasn't a complete stranger to the purpose of Inkscape. Perhaps I can post some of the output here once this sketch-stretch is over.

Sketch-Stretch 1

Pulling a fast one

Haven't continued along the angelic-drawing-route at all. Instead, I've updated my profile picture. I'm also going to shamelessly distract everyone with a few cute animal doodles. You should be able to identify a rabbit, a seal, a dog and a cat. I really need to start drawing bigger pictures. I had to enlarge this picture by 20% to make it at least a little bit more readable. I tend to start with really small drawing sizes, like 100 - 200px, when I could easily draw larger pictures and just adjust my brush size accordingly. I guess I subconsciously dislike the notion of having to scroll around the drawing, but that's just an issue I can simply tackle with the all-powerful zoom tool. The animals are drawn to over-emphasize their supposed cuteness, as my more realistic trials would probably yield something horrific as opposed to aww-inspiring ...

Animals 2

Multifaceted

Last post I mentioned something about wanting to draw more faces, so I did! On four different days, I drew a face. What was quite surprising was the progression of time taken on each picture. The first one took about three hours to make, with the rest of the pictures steadily taking less and less time to make. The fourth and final face took  roughly half an hour to finish! The first face is actually fully colored (a fact which I blame the unseemly amount of time taken to finish the damn thing on), but I decided on greyscaling it so that it doesn't pop out. For each picture I drew a quick sketch of the face first, then filled in the blanks, so to speak. Structurally I placed the shape or outline of the face, the facial features and the hair on different layers. Drawing each face was surprisingly enjoyable. As a bonus, I threw in a work-in-progress (well, sort of...) of the next scribble I want to work on.

Faces 3

WIP 1

To Infinity, and Beyond!

Here's a piece I began three or four weeks ago. I've worked on it for a total of three or four days, coming to a total of 6-8 hours worth of artistic effort. It's a reminder for me of why I started doing all this drawing in the first place: to be able to draw awesome mechs and other nifty mechanical contraptions! It's supposed to be a Szlamandra Tactical Armored Gear, from the boardgame Infinity. I've never played the game itself, but I happened to browse through the miniature catalog at one time and the Slamandra TAGs were among the coolest things in there. As for the drawing effort itself, I think I concentrated more on the shadows this time around, as opposed to any fine details.

Mech 1

Interlude

Games and work have been actively and very persuasively keeping me from my artistic efforts.The problem is, that getting better at this sort of thing would require much more... How should I put this... Cannon fodder? I think it's a bit like learning math (for some people, like me for example), that one just has to keep crunching numbers together rather than searching for an quicker way out. I'm clearly not doing this. I tried portraying some basic emotions this time around. Nothing fancy, just line-art with some shadows. I want to do more faces! I should start working on clothes as well.

Emotions 1

Heavy Metal

Here's another piece I started about a week ago and never bothered to finish it in time. It took some 4 to 6 hours to finish, with quite a bit of that time going into fiddling about with the line-art and coloring. I need to optimize those tasks somehow. Paint-bucketing uncolored areas wasn't such a hot idea after all, since it roughens the fill area edges rather crudely. One idea would be to quickly duplicate the line-art layer (or a portion of it), bucket it as normal, then merge it back onto the original line-art layer (or another duplicate) thus preserving the nice, gradual stepping that the lines often have. Anyway, this piece is a fictional WW2-era tank I wanted to try drawing. I drew it completely by hand, not using any line- or shape tools in it.

Vehicles 1

All systems 100% and feeling jolly good

Haha! So I'm finally rightfully reunited with my beloved desktop 'puter. It's amazing how faster I can get stuff done. Well, at least surfing the Net seems a lot faster! The lack of downtime updates is explained by my refusal to attempt another drawing with my laptop mouse. That was such an excersize in frustration that I felt it better to do without another such venture. This week's drawing portays my two household 'puters. I don't think I tried anything new with this one, but felt inspired to draw it nonetheless. And yes, my laptop is a bit on the aged and senile side of things.

Life 2

Technical Difficulties

My desktop computer blew up last week. A power-out occured, resulting in an electric surge that most likely fried the power supply along with the motherboard. It's been a week since I took it to the tech shop to have it repaired. Still no clue as to the true extent of the damage. I've been living in processing-power-limbo on my laptop in the mean time. Funny how doing anything with the ol' 'puter suddenly feels so slooow... I did the picture with Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI (dig the name...) and my lil' laptop mousie. I nearly lost my temper until I discovered the pen-tool and how to draw lines with it. Drawing with a low-DPI mouse is suprizingly frustrating. Here's to hoping I can get my beloved CPU back next week, hopefully in working condition.

Life 1

Schedules and such

I think I missed a deadline here... Hopefully no-one will notice since I did two pictures last week to compensate. There's not a whole lot to say about this week's piece. I want to get better at drawing faces, before I can concentrate on drawing other parts of the body. I think I got the basic outline of the face rather well this time. The eyes need more work. The hair appears to jut out from behind the ear. I think I should do a purely grayscale piece one of these days where I'll concentrate more on the face and less on everything else. Anyway, here it is.

Faces 2

Burst of Inspiration

Following up yesterdays creative work, here's a pop-artish, rather psychedelic piece. It conveys a distinct sense of disapproval, as portrayed by quite a stern-looking creature. This piece took, again, way more time than it should have. I originally intended to do something quick and fun, but I ended up fiddling with all the neat features of Photoshop Elements 6, mainly how to simulate color-range selection. Sadly I failed in my mission on how to figure out how to delete white-to-gray shades around the edges of the creature. I ended up simply blurring the creature a bit, then adjusting its colors to a more darker shade. Since Elements doesn't have nearly as much features as the "regular" version of PS, this was an experiment in ad-hoc, much as the very idea of this blog. Fun fact: the creature was originally doodled on notepad in roughly five seconds. Such was its charm that I had to scan and immortalize it to a digital medium.

Abstract 1

Holiday artistry

This is the first piece that I took my time making, taking a total of three days to make. Each day I worked on the image for about two to three hours, making the total workload 6 - 9 hrs. It's a spaceship cannon of sorts, with a revolverish barrel, power cells and a few exhaust vents. The background art was definitely the most fun part, especially coming up with humdrum descriptions and a graph related to the weapon. The fonts used in the piece are DS-Digital and Pixeldust Expanded. I initially drew a pipe-ring contraption attached to the midsection, but didn't turn out so well so I scrapped it from the finished piece rather mercilessly. I mainly learned that similar colors don't pop up quite that well with transparency. This resulted in some of the detail flourishes disappearing from the blueprint-style wiring at the back.

Weaponry 1

Barely there

Another 30 minutes or so and I'd have missed my blog-updating-schedule... *Phew* That said, it's not as easy to have a weekly update routine going, lax as though it might seem. This week's picture is an attempt at a baby seal, chilling on an iceberg (pun intended). I wanted to finally do something futuristic or weaponish, but maybe I can do that next week. I set out to do a comic-styled seal, as I can exaggerate the cuteness-factor more than I could if I'd have tried a more realistic approach. It would have also taken a lot more time, and I want to keep these attempts relatively short at the beginning (e.g. 1-3 hours or so per piece).

Animals 1

Distraught week

Somehow a lot of negative things managed to pile up on this week. I concentrated too much energy on things that actually required very little, such as this week's art piece. Had some trouble with my drawing tablet. The thing seemed to have lost all my carefully laid-out appliaction-spesific hotkeys, that I spent an hour or two setting up. I made a backup file this time, which will hopefully prevent tragedies like this from occurring in the future. Anyway, about the picture. I had this vision of drawing the wooden plank acting as the "front gate" into the mine in much more detail than I actually managed. I drew this landscape with my usual blurry style, and exaggerated the effect by adding light wind filters here and there.

Scenery 2

Also, here's a special bonus picture a certain visitor drew. 

Guest 1