Character Sketch: A Real Cowboy

So I'm back to character sketches and character designs. This time I turn to the West for a cowboy.

I drew this in Corel Painter X. I'm really starting to enjoy the look of digital inks. As I mentioned in a previous post, digital art should look like digital art and not traditional, and this is another step towards creating a unique look for my work.

I created two versions to test coloring styles. For the first I used my typical painting style in Painter from the half page comic days. For the second I used a new style with Photoshop shadows. I thought the second version would looks better, but I think I like the first.

I think the background turned out exceptionally well. The figure I'm not as happy with. It's good, but not great. He feels a little stiff.

But let me hear what you think.

Digital Painting - New Tool or New Medium?

This may surprise a few people, but there was a time before computers existed. No really, there was. Back then artists created work with paint, watercolors, ink, charcoal, and other physical mediums, not Photoshop or Wacom tablets. Once computers were invented, it didn't take long for computer graphics to rear their pretty heads. At first they were pretty primitive and had a distinct look. (Check out The Last Starfighter to see what I'm talking about.) By the 90s, computers were powerful enough to create work that looked like it had been made by hand. That lead many to ask whether computers were merely a new tool to create work that looked like traditional art, or whether computers were a new medium with it's own look and characteristics.

They were both right.

Many people use computers to mimic traditional art methods. But not me. I've said many times that a watercolor should look like a watercolor, and an oil painting should look like an oil painting. While you can create photorealistic oil paintings or rich watercolors that look like oil, one has to ask why. Each medium has really cool and unique properties, and the artist should take advantage of them. And that doesn't apply strictly to visual art either. Movie adaptions of books should take advantage of cinema and not try to follow a book to closely, as should book adaptions of movies.

I've been working with a number of computer programs including Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter (which does an amazing job of emulating natural media), Google Sketch Up, and others. I've been trying to create a style that looks digital, but not cheesy-we're-still-stuck-in-the-90s digital. The drawing above is my latest attempt. It has all the hallmarks of a traditionally drawn and painted work, but there's no question it's digital. I'm happy with how it turned out. I think an illustrated eBook with this type of art would be pretty cool, especially on a tablet. Maybe for my next project...

The next phase of painting

Man has been creating art for as long as he's existed--at least as far as we know. He's used every medium, tool, and device he could get his hands on. In the ancient world, painting on walls was very popular. Unfortunately, most of those walls have fallen and taken the paintings with them. In the middle ages artists used more portable canvases such as wood panels and stretched canvas. More of these exist today but not in their original locations. For those works specifically designed for a space, something is missing.

In the 21st century we have the same tools as previous artists--oils, watercolors, graphite, charcoal, pastel--and we have a few additional tools: pixels and electrons.

The illustration above is my latest attempt at digital painting. I tried making it look like a traditionally painted painting, but that just isn't me. And in today's world, very little traditional painting and illustration is used. Just look at a a movie poster, book cover, magazine graphic, or even newspaper. All of these used to be filled will hand drawn and painted illustrations. But today they use photography and computer generated works. It's the current trend. The good side is it is much quicker and cheaper to create media. The bad side is legions of artists are graduating from art school with little opportunity to use their skills to earn an honest living. What does this mean for the art? Good question.

While you ponder it, enjoy my latest work, and be sure to comment and let me know what you thing.

Exploring the mysterious caverns and caves below the ground

I've always been intrigued by images and stories about caverns and caves below the earth. Maybe that's why Mole Man is one of my favorite villains--it certainly isn't because of his powers or stories that have been told about him.

While exploring a new digital painting style, I thought the style would lend itself nicely to rock formations. And it did. Then I had to decide what to fill the caverns with. After all, it isn't the rocks alone that make these stories so interesting, but the exotic creatures and plants one finds down there. So I created a collection or unseen beasts based on the works of George Méliès and a gargoyle. The colors are the palette I've been using from old Steve Canyon covers. The characters were inked with a Zebra disposable brush pen and colored in Adobe Photoshop.

Overall, I like how it turned out, but it isn't exactly the style I'm going for. Back to the drawing board.

The shape of the canvas matters

I've been experimenting with a new style created from an amalgamation of things I've learned from past styles. (One of these days I'll settle on one--no, really, I will!) The style was meant for an illustrated novella, so naturally I created it vertically.

But I wasn't very happy with the results. I had moved on to another illustration, but something in the back of my mind said it had a lot of potential and only needed a little tweaking to realize it.

So I tweaked. I changed the format from vertical to horizontal, and wallah! Success. I'm much, MUCH happier with the result. But don't take my word for it.

Batter Up! (Wandering Koala plays ball.)

I don't like baseball--playing it or watching it--but I do think it's visually interesting and makes great art. So I decided to make art with it!

This was inspired by a collection of old comics I recently purchased. Back in the early days of the golden age of comics, superheroes (or costumed characters as they were called back then) would appear in anthologies, World's Finest and Comic Cavalcade, and share the cover doing some mundane task like playing baseball, waterskiing, or walking a tightrope in the circus. Until World War II, and then they punched out the Axis. I always liked those covers (the everyday and the propaganda ones). I thought Wandering Koala would work well in a similar situation, so I drew it.

As usual, I drew this with a Staedtler 2B, inked it with a paint brush and sumi ink, and then colored it in Adobe Photoshop. It turned out well. I just with I could bring myself to use hard lines instead of the more painterly look. One of these days. I just found a whole bunch of great old Steve Canyon covers...

As always, let me know what you think!

Color Illustration: Chained and Doomed

I'm not sure why I felt like drawing a six-armed beast with a blade in each hand ready to slice a chained Wandering Koala, but I did. Chains look really cool, have great texture, and take forever to draw. I really like how there are only two colors on the beast, and yet he looks like he's in full color. I also beat up the Wandering Koala more than usual with cuts, bruises, and torn clothes. Usually he escapes untouched, but that can get boring after a while.

I drew this with a Staedtler 2B pencil, inked it with a brush and sumi ink, and colored it in Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. I used a more painterly style, because this was a fantasy illustration and fantasy looks best in surreal paints.

Let me know what you think!

Book Cover: Jak Phoenix 2

What you see above is the cover to the latest novel in the Jak Phoenix Adventures series written by Matt D. Williams. I illustrated the cover, and it is pretty darn cool if I do say so myself.

If you read the first novel, then you know the series is classic space opera. The title character would rather kick back with a cold one than save the galaxy, but somehow he manages to do both. What's nice about this second book, The Markazian Deception, is it has all the charm and character of the first, but it is a completely different kind of story so you don't feel like you're reading a remake. So what's it about? Here's the synopsis:

Destroying a megalomaniac’s dreaded star cruiser was just part of another day for Jak Phoenix. The real trouble comes when it’s time to find steady employment.
The Miraltans simply need a pilot to help them evade trouble with bandits along their shipping routes. While the job doesn’t sound like it’s boiling over with excitement, it may be the easy money Jak and Baxter are looking for.
But, things aren’t always what they seem when Jak finds himself forced to take sides in a dispute he doesn’t fully understand. Never a man to volunteer help easily, Jak is quickly thrown far out of his element and finds his choices could jeopardize not only himself, but his friends and countless others.
Friendships will be tested and loyalties will be questioned in the second action packed Jak Phoenix adventure!

Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? This book is another classic work of space opera that's lots of fun to read and filled with wild shenanigans, back room deals, and several twists to hold your attention until the very end. It's currently available in all eBook formats from Smashwords, for the Kindle from Amazon.com, and will soon be available at other retailers and in paperback--but why would you want to read a paper book when an eBook is so much better?

Wandering Koala meets The Heckler

The Heckler was a great comic from the 90s created by Keith Giffen that ended way too soon along with Justice Society of America and Green Lantern: Mosaic. It was clever, witty, and made fun of so many conventions. I wonder, why didn't DC bring it back with its New 52? I really enjoyed The Heckler and wanted to see more of his adventures.


So I drew one.


I used a painting texture style that I developed while illustrating a children's storybook a couple of years ago. I really liked the effect and thought it would suit this work. The line work was created with some funky Zebra disposable pen brushes I purchased at JetPens. I included the black & white version below. It works really well in black & white, something I always try to do. Not only do I end up with two illustrations, but if an illustration works in black & white, then it seems to work better in color.

As always, let me know what you think.

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Digital Watercolor - Ladybugs

I've begun an exciting animation project, and as part of that I've been trying to come up with a style for the background paintings. I've created animations in the past, but I've never been happy with how the backgrounds turned out. I've studied hours and hours of animation, and the backgrounds I've been most impressed with were the ones created in watercolor and gouache (opaque watercolor). But I'm not the greatest watercolorist, and doing them on paper and scanning them in would add to the already incredible time burden.

So I decided to go digital and let the computer do the heavy lifting. I've tried several different methods in Corel Painter, the greatest paint program ever created, but I've never been satisfied with the results. I even tried using Brushes for the iPhone.

Then a few months ago I developed a technique to add textured shading to illustrations in Adobe Photoshop for a black & white illustrated novella, The Caveman Conspiracy (a Wandering Koala tale). I loved the results. I wondered if the technique could be used with color to create digital paintings. But how to approach it?

Then today I went to see The Secret World of Arrietty by Studio Ghibli. While watching the film, I studied the backgrounds and thought of a similar technique. Of course, I don't have a tenth of their skill or talent, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try.

So using the shading technique and a texturing technique I developed while working on Wandering Koala uncovers the Sixth Figure, I came up with this. I really like how much it looks like a watercolor painting, how bright the colors are, and how quickly and cleanly I was able to create it. It still needs some work and refinement, but I think I'm on the right track.

But that's just me. What do you think?