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)

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.

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!