Saturday, September 15, 2012

How To Week One

Hi, friends! This How-To project is a part of my Studio 2 contract -things I have to do to engage myself in social media"; so I will start with this simple ink sketch I did last night. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it because the original size is 11x14 in then I cropped it because I HATE the rest of the illustration. I don't know if you find this interesting or helpful but shoot me a question or a critique or whatever if you feel like to :).

1. I forgot to take a pic of my original thumbnail for this piece but I felt like drawing Hellboy so there's the pencil on the left.
My pencil is not actually tight because usually I ink my own stuff. But I am trying to be as concise as possible because in the past, I have the tendency to cover lines with more lines if my outlines are not clear enough.

2. I started inking the text balloon first with #2 brush --I used my brand new Loew Cornell 7202 here because my Escoda and Raphael have gone haywire after a good quarter. I am very light-handed and thankfully am kinda steady too so I have NO problem pulling a long straight or steady curve. Then I went in with Rotring Rapidograph 0.25 for the outline of the word "HEY!". I know I will black the white space anyway but I really want the letters to be very crisp and exact.

3. I used a French curve to define the outlines of each letter and after I inked the empty space, I went in once again to redefine the outlines because I messed up a bit here and there.

4. I finished the tail with my #2 brush and I was kinda happy with how crisp the letters looked like.

5. Most of the times, I love using brushes because my ink lines can be more angular than my pencils so using the brush helps to soften them up. If I am using tech pen or my Rotring, the angularity will even be more protuberant. I tried so hard to not doing too sketchy lines anymore.

6. I turned my paper now and then to keep the lines from from left to right or top to bottom. If you're left handed, your lines should go from right to left and still from top to bottom. Also, keep the lines as light and thin as possible at the first stroke and add more line-weight as you go.

Note: 
If you're light-handed, go with bigger brush like #3 because it will help you to loosen up; if you're heavy-handed, well, I think it depends on how thin you want your lines to be. For me, #1 brush handle is too skinny to hold so I usually wrap a tape around it; I need it because I have a bad habit of holding my brush really, really tight which is not good me me in the long run.

7. I finished all outline (I ended up hating them so I cropped the sketch -____-). There's some issues with Hellboy's left shoulder but that area should be black so I would cover it in black in the end anyway.

8. After all the lines were done, I erased ANY traces of pencils because I always draw with a graphite pencil --I hate the blue pencil under my inks because the blue pencil has this weird coating that will make my ink "floats" and when I need to erase something, the eraser will lift the ink because the paper doesn't really absorb the ink and that drives me nuts. I pencil like a barbarian, it's all over the paper.  I went in to add black placement and hatching/gradation  if need be -words; I am a sucker for hatching. The tip of the cigar was done by brush too.

9. More hatching on the nose --BUT less than I used to have in my previous sketches, mind you!-- still using #2 brush. Add a little bit moe lines to the side and the tip of the nose.

10. I did work on the background for this one before I decided that I HATE the medium shot and got rid half of the sketches. What you saw is me doing some big hatching with #3 brush. It does look small in the pic tho.

11. SO, I marked the area I was going to cover with textures and blacks before I went in with the bandage and stuff. Here's the trick to quickly make textures --maybe you know it already but one of my friend in Indonesia requested a how-to for it a few weeks ago:
  • get a bandage roll (the kind you use to wrap cuts or open wounds)
  • cut it in rectangular shape, or like maybe 5x5cm or 2x2in or whatever size you're comfortable holding
  • fill it with cotton balls and make a wrap on the the top --shaped like Hershey's kiss chocolate
  • holding it at the top, dip it in ink or if you're kinda neat-freak like me, I use a big brush to drop ink into the wrapped-cotton ball
  • give it a few try on a piece of paper to get rid of the first super-wet-blob-of-ink and then squeeze it softly onto the area you want
  • I will make a separate how-to on this because I am not sure my English is good enough to explain what I really want to say
I also used my finger tips to create different patterns on top of the bandage patterns because sometimes they could get very uniform and boring. The same technique, I painted my finger and just pressed it randomly onto the paper. Try to turn the paper now and then to differentiate the angle of both patterns. I have tried using sponge but I don't really like how it turns out on the paper so I rarely use it.

12. After I was done with the textures and I added splatter of whites. Lately, I don't feel like abusing my nibs so what I do is I take my brush, fill it with enough ink (white or black), and flick it against the lid of my ink bottle onto the paper. The bigger the brush, the bigger the blobs of ink you're gonna get. I still like the control and shapes of splatter I get from the nibs better but this technique is quick and easy if you're making con-sketches and want to look as if you put more efforts. I am also going to put a separate how-to pics on this splatter-using-lid thing. 


13. DONE with the splatter and I hate the black sidebeard jutting out ot Hellboy's jaw so I decided to remove it with whites :D. 

14. Some of the stuff I used: Loew-Cornell #2 7000 and 7202, Rotring rapidograph 0.1 and 0.25, Dr. Ph Martin's Bombay black, SUMI drawing ink no 17. I used Rotring instead of Koh-I-Noor and I like it better; the ink I use is a mixture of Dr. Ph Martin's and SUMI because the mixture of both is thin enough for my marupen so it doesn't clog the tip. You have too be careful though because SUMI is NOT waterproof :D.

Here is the final pic:



Thursday, August 23, 2012

LOOK!

Lats night while I was sitting down and trying to do my paper for an online class, I got "creative". I reached for my nearest sketchbook and did this little doodle for a 45 minutes. All micron. I was thinking about another style I've come very familiar with but have never really given it a try.

So, I would have to say that inspiration comes when you least expect it. I couldn't finish my paper after this. *SIGH

(based loosely on an actual event)

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Tribute to Sergio Toppi

RIP Sergio Toppi (October 11, 1932 - August 21, 2012)

Today, one of my favorite artists passed away. So as soon as I heard that, I went to the studio and started sketching while I was looking at his awesome illustrations and sequential pages in my tiny smartphone. As I promised, this blog will 'record' my process rather than only display my final art so for this one, you might see it as it is, no Photoshop magic, no touch up, no nothing.


Here you see I was already halfway inking the head --I almost forgot to take picture!-- on top of my blue/pencil lines. Usually, I don't like using the blue pencil because when you ink on top of blue lines, they sort of get in the way or make the ink not absorbed/distributed well on the paper and it drives me nuts. 




The tools I was using were Rotring rapidograph 0.25 --one of my favorite. I like it better than soft tip tech pens because it makes a single line weight no matter how much pressure you put. I think for technical stuff, Rotring and marupen are always my first choice(s). Well, a head is not actually a technical stuff but Rotring gives me the nice steady line weight I need for this illustration. As you can see, the pencil lines are pretty rough but I put more details for the eyes and face. 




 I went on with my Rotring rapidograph 0.5 to make thicker lines on the weird collar thingy and marupen to for the more thicker likes near the shoulder and sleeves. As the black area, I used my 'ol faithful Raphael 8404 #2. As the black area turned into white, I used marupen to create different line weights. I like marupen since it can created line weight as easy as it will give you a steady, nicely distributed line weight if you have a steady-light hand --which I happen to have.




After I was done doing the gradation, I didn't really like it --too bad I forgot to take picture of the first version I did -- so I just went in again with my brush and black almost all of the coat/shirt. Luckily,that also help me to pop out the fingers/hand better. The mark makings I did on the fingers were kinda tricky but I tried t do my best with it. I used various tools here back and forth; from Rotring 0.25 to Raphael 8404 #2.


When I roughed out the background, I did the overall outline of the fortress then I drew several random horizontal and vertical lines using my mechanical pencil (Rotring --I'm a sucker for this brand). After that, I went in with Rotring 0.25 for the outline of the bricks then for the fine lines inside the brick (the textures of the bricks), I used marupen. When I was done with all the texture, I went back in with Rotring 0.5 and or marupen to thicken some part of the bricks.

Here's the final one after I cleaned it and did some level adjustments in Photoshop.


Saturday, August 18, 2012

RESSURECTION

HEY, FRIENDS! IT HAS BEEN A WHILE INDEED!
I am gonna activate the blog again. Whatever goes here, I guess, hopefully, more like my process, photoreference, and my sketch/thumbnails/rough I will not post to my deviantart or facebook.

I was doing some pencilling then I got bored.I decided to revisit my and my friends' old blog. Then I got this urge to revamp my character we did for the challenge more than 6 months ago. To refreshen your memory, here's the original character:
original post here

There you go, Bryce and Ava, in December 2011, my first quarter in SCAD. Fun to look at your old drawings, huh? Well, not so much :D. Anyway, last night I sat down and kinda doodled for a while --which would finally take my like 4 hours of kinda-finished-pencil. Here's what I came up with:


I looked at both of them last night and I couldn't help smiling. I remembered one night before I posted the original one in Winter Break; I didn't have the courage to do so until someone came over that night and insisted that I posted it anyway. Here's for you, friend! Have an awesome weekend!

Friday, February 17, 2012

GAMEOVER Anthology on Kickstarter


English:
Me and 15 other amazing sequential students (ARTISTS!) are putting together an anthology book and are starting a Kickstarter project to collect the funds to actually print it! If you do not know what Kickstarter is make sure to follow us on our blog because you could be able to help us get this out there. And not only that, with your collaboration you will receive great rewards including the printed book. So come in and take a look!

EspaƱol:
15 otros estudiantes de artes secuenciales (ARTISTAS!) y yo estamos trabajando en una antologia y estamos armando un proyecto en Kickstarter para reunir los fondos para poder publicar el libro. Si no sabes lo que es Kickstarter sigue nuestro blog porque podrias ayudarnos a imprimir el libro. Y no solo eso, con tu colaboracion recibes distintas recompensas incluyendo una copia del libro impreso!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/desertrabbit/game-over-insert-more-quarters-anthology

gameoveranthology.blogspot.com

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Wait a second...who is this guy?

I'm not sure who the guy in the first sketch is...I like him though.  (Well, I'd like him more if he weren't wearing that yellow shirt...that's too bright!)  He's also not cross-eyed...that's my bad and I didn't realize I'd drawn him with goofy pupils until I put it up here.

Just some sketches for Scrivener and Shifte.  More Co, a few cars, and this new guy, who's nameless.  (He's also based eeever so loosely on someone at my church.)



Also, can I have my scanner back now?  And Photoshop too please?  This whole "I'll take a photo and then edit it in a free pixel manipulation program" thing is really just not my bag of chips.