08-16-2015, 11:15 PM
Lyra: Thanks for your crit! I will keep that in mind in future digital painting mileage. Even just picking up the wacom to make something in Photoshop remains a conscious challenge for me, but that's how the chipping process go :) Look forward to more frequent digi mileage from now on! And I'll look forward to more crit-cookies!
ceartalves: Thanks :) I don't think I'm good at animal anatomy at all, hahaha! Sometimes I would design a creature, and in their skeleton view, I'll forget to draw the whole pelvis bone. Or forget the fact that mammals only have 7 neck bones. Anatomy study is like ... eating or doing laundry - it's life-long.
ramalook: Oh I wish I have a beast mode..... The down side of waking up at 5:30, 6am is that I look all energy and focus power pretty much by 9pm, and have to sleep by 11pm or midnight. Not to mention the massive Resistance and Procrastination counter-strikes all through the days (when I'm not at day job). Let's keep fighting!
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Been doing some sketching and trying out a technique that's like looking at clouds and imagining creatures. Only in this case, I'm the only making the clouds. Not wanting to spend another whole day fidgeting through Photoshop to find brushes, then make shapes then try to pick out designs, I decided to make the shapes with an art marker.
Back in one of my previous job, they gave me a box of used Blick brand art marker for free, and I am using the 50% Grey marker to draw out loose ideas of creatures. the big brush tips prevents me from making any fine shapes or even points. At first I was annoyed at the ugly shapes, and that it bleeds over to the next page even on this thick-paper sketchbook. Then I realized I could use the stained back-side of the same page to pick out different designs from the same marker blob.
Art markers are expensive, and their advantage over a brush and watercolor is no brush strokes edges. I don't know how, but the marker strokes will just blend into each other to make one shape without that rimmed edge look easily gotten from watercolor brush strokes. That is an advantage because less visible brush strokes = less distractions and dictation to my mind's eye while trying to pull shapes out of the grey blob. Markers dry quickly, is less messy, and let me work faster (even though my 'fast' is really slow compared to many, many, many others). I can abuse a hard marker tip in ways I can't abuse a soft hair brush without splaying the hair and making uncontrollable, shitty brush strokes that look like they are painted by an old broom.
That said, they're still very expensive, and seem to be non-refillable unless it's the Copic brand, and creates a lot of plastic, toxic wastes. Hopefuly I'll find an alternative to this marker shape making business in other traditional media.
Here are 2 examples of what I've been up to. One with pencil base, and one with marker base. Both picked out with an Artist Pitt pen and that Pentel brush pen. Unlike the markers, these can be pried open with a tool and refilled with Bombay India ink that does not clog.
It's important to note that tools do not make art, and an artist with great skill will make great art even with a cheap office Bic pen. I use these tools mostly because I can afford them, and am also cutting budget in other stuff like food and cellphone to 'make up' for the purchases. It's also important to remember the fact that money can always be earned back in the future, and they will pretty much look and feel the same then, but other things won't.
ceartalves: Thanks :) I don't think I'm good at animal anatomy at all, hahaha! Sometimes I would design a creature, and in their skeleton view, I'll forget to draw the whole pelvis bone. Or forget the fact that mammals only have 7 neck bones. Anatomy study is like ... eating or doing laundry - it's life-long.
ramalook: Oh I wish I have a beast mode..... The down side of waking up at 5:30, 6am is that I look all energy and focus power pretty much by 9pm, and have to sleep by 11pm or midnight. Not to mention the massive Resistance and Procrastination counter-strikes all through the days (when I'm not at day job). Let's keep fighting!
##############
Been doing some sketching and trying out a technique that's like looking at clouds and imagining creatures. Only in this case, I'm the only making the clouds. Not wanting to spend another whole day fidgeting through Photoshop to find brushes, then make shapes then try to pick out designs, I decided to make the shapes with an art marker.
Back in one of my previous job, they gave me a box of used Blick brand art marker for free, and I am using the 50% Grey marker to draw out loose ideas of creatures. the big brush tips prevents me from making any fine shapes or even points. At first I was annoyed at the ugly shapes, and that it bleeds over to the next page even on this thick-paper sketchbook. Then I realized I could use the stained back-side of the same page to pick out different designs from the same marker blob.
Art markers are expensive, and their advantage over a brush and watercolor is no brush strokes edges. I don't know how, but the marker strokes will just blend into each other to make one shape without that rimmed edge look easily gotten from watercolor brush strokes. That is an advantage because less visible brush strokes = less distractions and dictation to my mind's eye while trying to pull shapes out of the grey blob. Markers dry quickly, is less messy, and let me work faster (even though my 'fast' is really slow compared to many, many, many others). I can abuse a hard marker tip in ways I can't abuse a soft hair brush without splaying the hair and making uncontrollable, shitty brush strokes that look like they are painted by an old broom.
That said, they're still very expensive, and seem to be non-refillable unless it's the Copic brand, and creates a lot of plastic, toxic wastes. Hopefuly I'll find an alternative to this marker shape making business in other traditional media.
Here are 2 examples of what I've been up to. One with pencil base, and one with marker base. Both picked out with an Artist Pitt pen and that Pentel brush pen. Unlike the markers, these can be pried open with a tool and refilled with Bombay India ink that does not clog.
It's important to note that tools do not make art, and an artist with great skill will make great art even with a cheap office Bic pen. I use these tools mostly because I can afford them, and am also cutting budget in other stuff like food and cellphone to 'make up' for the purchases. It's also important to remember the fact that money can always be earned back in the future, and they will pretty much look and feel the same then, but other things won't.