Howdy friends and neighbors!
It has been a couple months since I have had time to post something here. This summer has been a busy one. I have been working hard for a new client. The style is slightly different from my usual work, so I have had to put many hours in honing "inking and coloring" skills. Usually I do pencil drawings, and light color washes in PhotoShop which resemble water colors in the final piece. This is a style I have honed for years now, and am quite comfortable with.
The style this new client is asking for is pen and ink, like comic book art. I started using Photoshop brushes (which would have been ideal if they worked right). But I was never able to achieve the same results in the computer as real ink on real paper. After a couple of days of research I decided to delve into inking with a brush. I bought the supplies, and spent literally a couple of months trying to master a skill that takes years to hone. Not surprisingly I came up short of perfection (in my opinion). After working out the cramps in my drawing hand I switched to ink pens. There is still a problem of having to clean up the lines (removing the white of the page so I can color it). It is a time consuming process. Although I was able to reduce my clean up time dramatically with some help from my friend Matt Strieby (Matt also helped provide me with the tools I have needed to keep my work going. Thanks Matt, I owe you a lot buddy).
The drawing you see here of Chip was done with Micron Pens on Pentalic Paper for Pens. Then I scanned it, and in Photoshop (using the new selection tools they have) separated the lines from the page. Then I painted underneath the lines on a separate layer. I did this drawing to test out the new Micron pens and to practice cross hatch shading. I hope in the next couple days to post a black and white coloring page version of this art to TheSearchersWorld.com, and to The Searcher by Ryan Loghry on FB.
It has been a summer of learning, and struggling, and in the end success which is what we all strive for right? I hope you have enjoyed this post, and the drawing of our hero Chip. Thank you for stopping by. God bless, and have a terrific day.
Howdy friends and neighbors!
It has been a couple months since I have had time to post something here. This summer has been a busy one. I have been working hard for a new client. The style is slightly different from my usual work, so I have had to put many hours in honing "inking and coloring" skills. Usually I do pencil drawings, and light color washes in PhotoShop which resemble water colors in the final piece. This is a style I have honed for years now, and am quite comfortable with.
The style this new client is asking for is pen and ink, like comic book art. I started using Photoshop brushes (which would have been ideal if they worked right). But I was never able to achieve the same results in the computer as real ink on real paper. After a couple of days of research I decided to delve into inking with a brush. I bought the supplies, and spent literally a couple of months trying to master a skill that takes years to hone. Not surprisingly I came up short of perfection (in my opinion). After working out the cramps in my drawing hand I switched to ink pens. There is still a problem of having to clean up the lines (removing the white of the page so I can color it). It is a time consuming process, although with some help from my friend Matt Strieby I was able to reduce my time spent cleaning up dramatically.
The drawing you see here of Chip was done with Micron Pens on Pentalic Paper for Pens. Then I scanned it, and in Photoshop (using the new selection tools they have) separated the lines from the page. Then I painted underneath the lines on a separate layer. I did this drawing to test out the new Micron pens and to practice cross hatch shading. I hope in the next couple days to post a black and white coloring page version of this art to TheSearchersWorld.com, and to The Searcher by Ryan Loghry on FB.
It has been a summer of learning, and struggling, and in the end success which is what we all strive for right? I hope you have enjoyed this post, and the drawing of our hero Chip. Thank you for stopping by. God bless, and have a terrific day.
Today I'm sharing with you a sketch of Chip riding a bus. I'm working on a new story. Unlike the previous two picture books starring Chip this one is a middle grade book with illustrations. Probably a lot of illustrations, since I'm an illustrator/writer.
I have a lot of experience with buses. I used to ride an express to and from work in Portland each day for several years. I did a lot of sketching on those 40 minute rides.
Here we see Chip, and to a lesser extent his pal Fred who is sitting next to him. I have been drawing Chip for about 11 years now. One of the many things I like about writing a different kind of book like this (middle grade as opposed to picture book) is that I can be much more subtle. In a picture book you can't get away with the main character facing away from "the camera", in a big crowd. You have to have your hero easy to spot for the little kids.
The guy coming up the stairs is a minor character, whose only job was to start the story off. But then I changed the whole beginning of the story, and this scene doesn't exist anymore. I won't tell you his name, because it was so good I'm recycling it and using it as the name of the antagonist in the new version of the story. Ha! Cliff hanger there.
As usual this drawing was done in a sketchbook, with pencil. No color on this because I don't have time to colorize a drawing I'm not going to use these days.
I hope you all are having a terrific day, take care, and God bless. --Ry
