Vintage Punch

Sai Junk

2012-01-30T21:10:00.005Z

I might be trying to do too much in Sai. Looks like I have to bite the bullet and dip into Painter again. I hope the interface has changed since Painter X. Never liked it that much and boy was it unstable.

You know your a prude...

2012-01-05T13:41:00.004Z

.....when you scribble speedy bras and boxers to cover up naughty bits :/

A million ideas....

2011-12-26T16:37:00.004Z

....and no speedy way to paint them.

Hope everyone is having a fun Christmas or Holiday!!

Mirror

2011-11-04T11:53:00.005Z

Been away for a bit haven't I. Work, work, work.

Let's Ref

2011-06-20T20:24:00.004+01:00

60 minute sketch from a screencap. I made a few mistakes made in the set up, one being the canvas ratio. Next time I'll make sure its the same as the capture.
Not too happy with this one... long neck, screwy nose, under saturated background. I'll try a few more of these though.

And one 90 min sketch I forgot to post. Ref'd from some fashion magazine.

Speed paints

2011-05-26T14:19:00.006+01:00

It seems that if I work on anything for more than 2 hours I get fed up and even start disliking it. Gotta learn to be patient somehow. Anyway, here's some 90min sketches.

Might finish this gal later, placeholder hair just looks awful.

Invincible, refed from a googled 3D sculpt of him.

The joker's in that suit.

Updating

2011-05-25T11:44:00.006+01:00

Stay a Head

2011-05-01T16:55:00.002+01:00

Lots of deadlines and office work to do :(...no time to chat. Here's some junk for you though.

Bad Habits?

2011-03-19T22:56:00.007Z

Don't you hate it when you notice odd things about your work. I could say this is just my style but since I didn't notice it before now, I'd say it's a bad habit :/

One bent leg, one straight leg:

I also realised I can't do those painterly radial renders. You know, the kind of ones that are sharp at the focus points and blur into a lovely undefined mess at the edges. It just looks plain unfinished when I try, drawing attention to the unworked parts. It may come from working the details too soon and too tightly or perhaps a more painterly brush is needed. I've seen artists use the blur tool but that's cheating right? lol

(The red is where is shouldn't be focusing)

Anyway, these things don't bother me too much but I thought I'd share none the less.

Paint Battle

2011-02-19T21:59:00.005Z

I really like digital painting but I always feel awkward the moment the underlying sketch disappears, like the energy is being killed or whatever. Maybe my love for line art and inks clouding my judgement. Anyway, I've noticed having reference of paintings modern or classic are helping me out a lot lately, it's like the visualisation battle is taken care of and I'm free to play around with the concept.

Enough of my rambling, here are some wips and junk.

Don't mind me.

2011-01-25T19:49:00.002Z

Just doogling.

First Post Of The Year

2011-01-11T20:56:00.005Z

Resolution. Stay positive even when negative.

Updating

2010-12-30T16:18:00.003Z

The originals were so horrible just I had to update them before I boot 2010 to the wind. They're still bad, just not as bad as before. One thing I learnt this year painting faces is that people seem to love boring featureless faces a lot. I'll have to remember that when doing commercial work.
:)

The one above is actually the original but I was just messing about with the lighting so much it ended up looking creepy instead of the eerie I was looking for.

Emotions Run High

2010-11-24T00:35:00.005Z

And now my adorable wireless mouse is broken! Wow lol. I'm not even upset about it, to be honest I wasn't even that bothered when my TV blew. As long as I got music to listen to and a pen to draw with I'm not gonna let myself get down. Besides, the Wacom I have has been yearning to be customized for navigation.

This one's a few months old. I felt this way earlier this year. Life can gut punch you sometimes.

On a brighter note....look, a girlie!

Lunch time!

2010-11-21T14:19:00.003Z

Some lunchtime doodles!

My TV/Monitor just broke so forgive my more than sporadic nature. I'm gonna try fixing it myself. *opens toolbox* Wish me luck.

A bit Tangled

2010-10-31T19:30:00.013Z

I was really down when I heard Glen Keane wasn't directing this movie any more but I glad he's at least animation supervisor. You can really see his 2D flair for character design and animation in there. What's interesting also is that the film's secondary characters have a that classic Milt Kahl look too. There's so much going for this film visually, I just hope the story is just as good.

Tangled – Maximus

Zombine

2010-10-28T03:30:00.002+01:00

Two hours into working on this I started to get weirded out on how…you know, weird it looked. I realised after I did a quick paint over that I’m just not used to seeing people or women in this case without eyelashes, pupils and hair. I realised also that rendering realistic people is still an infinitely boring choir. I’m keen to start on some stylised and Toon stuff soon, some stuff that would look cool as vinyl figures and the sort. Gosh, the possibilities. If only I had more hours in my day.

Speaking of hours of the day, I’ve been spending lunchtimes reading The Walking Dead. Wow, I love it!

Flank Junk

2010-10-26T01:43:00.005+01:00

Some play arounds with Flank, a character from a comic book sample I did a while back *cringes*. I wanted to do a mock video game version of him a while back too but never got around to it.

Bits n bobs

2010-10-24T20:52:00.003+01:00

A hand, an amazon and a muscle map dude. I'm starting to get a hang of Sculptris I think.

Where's your 2d stuff I hear? Don't worry the 2D stuff will follow shortly.

Bless My Soul

2010-10-22T02:48:00.005+01:00

This is the product of my first two or three play around in Sculptris.

It's free. It's small (under 5mb). It's simple to use. And check this......It's Fun. There must be a catch somewhere.

Thing I don't like

2010-10-14T13:24:00.004+01:00

Things....I spent a long time staging and planning only to rush them in the end due to the infamous "deadline demon". The errors are everywhere :/

Seeing Green

2010-10-11T01:38:00.008+01:00

My Monitor/TV has gone coo-coo, displaying everything with a vintage green tinge, so no colours until I get a replacement DVI-cable. I'm gonna stay positive and use this time to work out some 3D artwork kinks. And perhaps post some older work I haven't had the bravery to post.

Anywho thought I post my influence meme thingy to get the blog posts rolling again. Cause I'm such a nice guy I'm gonna add some links for those curious adventures out there.

Yoji Shinkawa
Saul Bass
Earl Oliver Hurst
Robert McGinnis
Tim Biskup
Jorby Alano
Glen Keane
Bill Presing
Kentaro Muria
Ben Caldwell
Tite Kubo
Tom + Matt Rhodes
Isutoshi
Matteo De Longis
Chuck Jones
Tracy Mark Lee
Ryan Ottley
Shane Glines
Aysha Shehim
Phil Noto
Saka (Sukinahito)
Kinu Nishimura
Hiroaki Samura
Rockin’ Jelly Bean
Shane Prigmore
Tsukasa “Bullet” Jun
Dave Johnson
Hiroyuki Imashi

Heat Up

2010-09-01T20:37:00.004+01:00

Some warm ups.

The Drop

2010-08-30T00:18:00.003+01:00

Just dropping a few things. Lupin 3rd there at the bottom was sketched by sparky, inks n' colours were by me.

Study, Study, Fuddy, Duddy.

2010-08-09T05:57:00.009+01:00

Here's some digital paintings and a few speed paints for Art Jams over at King Zilla.

Perhaps I'm studying too much, I rarely have anything 'finished' to post. The worst part of the studying perhaps is being your own critic and not knowing if something is good or awful. I watch X Factor sometimes and wonder how on earth some people can not notice how bad their singing is. The same can be seen in art too, people just posting and churning out bad designs, galleries with 400 plus pieces of garbage work. Of course they were told 'that's nice' and 'keep going' but rarely 'the noses you draw are way too long' or 'the palettes your using are often too bland'....ahhhh... I'm ranting lol. Basically I don't think I'm gonna post or study as much from now on...well, at least untill I get a mentor or a strong enough peer group to teach me a thing or two about my strengths or shortcomigs.

I'm Late, I'm Late!!

2010-07-06T11:09:00.006+01:00

Mall Knight

2010-06-29T21:55:00.002+01:00

Getting my random character design on. My not so good friend suggested I take two random words (Mall Knight) and try and come up with something fun. And that's just what I did.

Lantern Gear

2010-06-10T19:50:00.004+01:00

Look, it's that Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

Wonder Woman Collab

2010-05-24T20:41:00.004+01:00

Who drew the lovely Wanda Wuman up there? Well, the pencils were by Ash Collins and the garbage inks were my work. I don't like inking much but just I couldn't help myself.

Where We Belong : Lostprophets

Speed study

2010-05-09T16:30:00.006+01:00

A very quick lighting study and some quick doodles. I should really take my time with something like, soon.

More Faces n Junk

2010-05-03T08:59:00.003+01:00

I'll Scream!

2010-04-29T04:43:00.003+01:00

A few quickies

It's only a joke Batsy Boo

2010-04-27T01:55:00.004+01:00

I hardly ever draw The Joker the same way twice but I always picture him with Mark Hamill's voice.

Told Ya!

2010-04-23T18:15:00.005+01:00

Every day-ish like I said.

The little number above was pencilled wonderfully by Fire-Tisane and horribly inked by myself. Live and learn I say. I'ma learning, I'ma learning!

Snake? Snake?......SNAKE!?!

Lots to post!

2010-04-20T22:45:00.006+01:00

Got lots to post. Maybe even enough for something everyday......ish. One day I promise to post something that's not garbage though. Hopefully that's one day soon!

Here's something for a contest over on Satellite Soda, it's crap compared to the other entries but hey, a man has a right to dream right.

Doodle Bug

2010-03-10T18:30:00.004Z

No time to do anything cool, so I'm gonna be posting warm-ups n' doodles for a while.

Nonsense Really

2010-02-18T21:55:00.004Z

Doodles Eyes and Flank

2010-01-29T03:32:00.007Z

Something Old Something New Year pt 2

2010-01-24T22:32:00.004Z

No time to chit chat as the work piles up...so here, have more sketches from last year.

Something Old Something New Year

2010-01-20T20:08:00.005Z

I've been very absent and very busy. I'm still very, busy but here anyway, some old sketches done in Sai before I found out my Wacom Tablet was calibrated incorrectly. I was truly struggling for no reason at all.

15 min sketch in Sai:

And look, a good old monster for once:

Stuff n' Junk pt.1

2009-09-30T18:14:00.009+01:00

Super busy, working on a few things, most of which I'll probably fail at so I'm not gonna mention much about it.

Sketches for people:Flank M.D. An old character I was using for a test comic. Tweaking his look slightly. Whiped out the brush pen for the top one. It's pretty cool for speed inks.

More Water

2009-09-07T21:38:00.003+01:00

I was doing all these water colours to build up to a series of classic pin-ups, then thought....why. It's not exactly something objective. I have so many other artistic weaknesses that need greater attention. Perspective, anatomy, sequential art, consistency, etc. Maybe I should destroy myself by doing a short comic to tackle all these at once. Man, I sound totally lost :s Anyway....

Oh yeah, I bought The Art Earl Oliver Hurst recently. Thought I'd share some of his awesomeness. They sure don't make em like they used to.

I also just realised that it's incredibly hard to came cartoons appealing. It's almost like trying to impress someone with a one liner instead of a story. You really have to make every line/shape count with animated style illustration. Hurst was one of the few that could do this.

Carry On My Wayward Son

2009-08-31T13:41:00.005+01:00

Here's Cable with all its flaws n glory, minus my noisy background that seems to annoy most people.

Last week was almost a total wreck for me, I didn't have the motivation to draw when I got home work. Then I stumbled on a old folder of inspirational art on my pc. Needless to say I felt better after, pummelling my brother at Marvel vs Capcom 2 helped a bit too :)

Any of Bengu's Promotional and character art kicks me into drawing.

Edayan, Rival Schools, nuff said.

Dave Johnson. Wow, I love this cover for so many reasons.

(Edit) Kinu, Capcom legend.

Pushed Too Far

2009-08-29T04:56:00.007+01:00

Look! An animated Gif!

"Oooh I'm so scared"
And one overdue gift!

Something Old Something New

2009-08-24T21:19:00.006+01:00

A pile of speed scribbles from 2007/08 using my long gone tiny tablet. I thought I had a lot of digital sketches to share but sifting through the 500 or so files I noticed they were all weird anatomy studies, tests and thumbs of unfinished ideas. How lame. I need to stop studying all the time and just finish stuff off.

Some "faux" water colour tests. Need to do some good old cheesecake pin-ups in this style perhaps. Ignore the hair on the girl, apparently the way I draw hair on paper doesn't work on computers.

Fantastic Strawhats

2009-08-18T03:32:00.008+01:00

A WIP I'm gonna put together if all goes well.

Sai Junk

Fission Mailed

2009-08-15T19:30:00.005+01:00

Drawing without a sketch or reference made this exercise more stressful than need be so if quit an hour in. The energy of a drawing is the sketch, every stage after is just trying to hold on to that magic. So I guess sometimes you have to plan fun, sketching is fun planning.....*rambles to self*

Relics that’s I should really finish.

More goofing around in Sai. Should really play more with water colour.

Like Rabbits

2009-08-13T04:43:00.006+01:00

Bleh! Not sure I like this. It seems like I can't draw fun illustrations and study anatomy on the same day. Every drawing done after heavy studies comes out rigid. I put some fast inks on her to get and idea of how I could salvage it. Needs many fixes like the hands, arms, face, blah blah blah...

Berserk. Love this manga. I could rant all day about its greatness.

Random junk

Mini Poll Closed!

2009-08-05T19:42:00.006+01:00

So you people want comic/manga lines eh? Then more is what you'll get!
They won't look a crappy as this don't worry. In the meantime I'll research a way to speed up my vector inking.

Oh yeah, here's the sketch I used for the poll. Sorry to disappoint ya if you thought she was flashing lol. I had a funny line to go with this illustration but it turned out to be a bit too vulgar. Any one got a cheesy line I could use?

Brawl over lines!

2009-07-22T05:35:00.000+01:00

A Poll for the three or four people that visit my blog lol. I know form is most important but what type of line should I play more with in the future? Vote on the far right there, c'mon it won't hurt....much.

Smokey the Bandit

2009-07-17T21:29:00.006+01:00

I recently found out my screen wasn't calibrated properly, doh! No.2 is what I was working with. Not only were the colours off, everything was slightly stretched too! Oh well, it's sorted now I guess.

Anywho, onto the post! Here's how I smoke, first I reminisce:

*wipes tear* Ahh...The beauty of destruction.

The way I do smoke is very crude but it's more fun for me this way, that's all I really care about lol. I decided to veto the sparkles. I'll save that one for another day.

Twilight Waker

2009-06-30T00:18:00.010+01:00

I like Twilight Princess but I really miss some of those fun design elements of Wind Waker. When I get through with the remainder of my uni work I might finish this.

Yep, it's a crappy smoke brunsh!Just goofin' around here.

Jaffa Kree!

2009-06-23T14:56:00.008+01:00

Just playing with a scribble really, trying to use an old “Blur Your Eye” technique I was taught in the good old days. I used to use it in life drawing sessions to paint or draw at speed. It’s still kinda funny to me how the brain has a strange auto-fill function to help you mentally complete an image.

I should be pushing contrast more, shame on me!

Wonder Girl Remix

2009-06-12T14:46:00.011+01:00

Yep, it's my remix of the Donna Troy costume. Not much of a change? Why? Cause there's nothing really wrong with that flashy red suit of hers that's why. Lots of line weight nitpicks I guess but if I keep inking like this I'll have that issue silenced or at least quietened one day.

Oh yeah! Check out this new figure by Rockin Jelly Bean. It's like a mixture of Manga, Comics and Retro all in one. Hope they do more! THE FIGURE HERE!

www.rockinjellybean.com

Ruff n' Roar

2009-06-10T07:05:00.007+01:00

I’m finding Illustrator too time consuming these days, inking anything that’s not cartooned is a real labour and not fun at all. And hey, if your not doing work it’s good to have fun! So…between jobs I’ve been making some speed-ink brushes, pencils brushes and what have you to loosen myself up. I scribbled over a Hiroki Samura drawing to test the ink brush out and I have to say not spending 3 hours inking is quite fun indeed. Don’t fret though, Illustrator will still be used for my main works. These brushes will be used for more experimental or fun stuff.

Tut-tut, if you’re confused about anything in the sketch stage cause your rushing prepared to get a hard smack when you try and shade or colour it. I got to remember to ref poses if I’m gonna speed though things. Tightening the under drawing helps to I guess lol.

Under Painting

2009-06-04T22:01:00.005+01:00

Well, I tried under painting again and boy it's truly a fast way of painting, I cranked out this test in just under an hour so please ignore the shoddy line art. I'm quite sure I'm doing it totally wrong though because I have no idea what blending mode I should be using for the colour. Screen, Overlay, Multiply, who knows!

Don't cry Bruce we'll find out one day chum!

Major Armstrong

2009-06-02T01:12:00.005+01:00

I've been fiddling with Sai Paint Tool to get a nice pencil like line. Getting closer and closer slowly. I thought I'd draw Major Armstrong while I was at it because the animation in the reboot of the Full Metal Alchemist series is just too amazing.

Okie Loki

2009-05-22T20:01:00.005+01:00

Well this is not so Okie Dokie with me. This was meant for a Loki Jam but I got stuck when I started her left arm, maybe the distraction of coursework is sapping my creative energy. I guess I'm just tired lol.

Sai Samson

2009-05-02T00:17:00.005+01:00

I've got and essay and four book covers to do by the end of next week, ergh! On a better note, after many years of searching, I found a program I can comfortably sketch in. Her name is Sai Paint Tool. Sorry Sketch Book Pro and Open canvas but you have to leave now.

Winsor Inks

2009-02-27T04:59:00.003Z

So I had my first attempt at using a actual inking brush! It was a Winsor & Newton size 3 and I made a tonne of mistakes. The first blunder was the super thick first brush stroke on the cheek there, I now see why they say you gotta do warm-ups before inking. It’s no where near as clean as my digital inks but I got the whole thing done in like 15 minutes and I may like this “rougher” look. Not too sure.

Timmy Tribal

2009-02-25T03:44:00.004Z

I painted on a Munny. His name is Timmy Tribal.

I also bought a crapload of art equipment today. Some copic markers, 2mm coloured pencil lead( wowzers this is cool), some Winsor ink, alot of brush pen refils and some other junk too. You might just see some nice mixed media stuff here soon. Anyway here are some scribbles.

Martin Keamy

2009-02-24T00:57:00.007Z

Or just Mr.Keamy, the villain from season 4 of Lost. Man this guy was a jerk. The moment he first smiled I knew he was bad news lol.

And a few scribbles I did after watching Superjail. What a weird show.

Time

2009-02-11T20:43:00.004Z

Gawsh, I don’t have enough time for anything these days. I’m not sure if its just uni or I’m just overloading my day with too many tasks. I think some time/priority management is in order.

Calibrate It

2008-12-28T17:23:00.004Z

Thanks to a good friend and a little saved money I treated myself to a Intuos3 graphic tablet! Oh Joy! I'm terrible at drawing with graphic tablets but I don't care, I'm determined to get good with this bad boy. Here's a sketch I did trying to calibrate the pressure sensitivity in Painter and Photoshop. It's a bit flat on one side and the eyes are wonky but its a start I guess.

Gosh darn Batgirl we're done!

2008-10-20T13:55:00.004+01:00

When colouring I always ref particular artists to remind myself of the sort of finish I want. Mainly because I'm a major procrastinator who ponders what to add next all the time. This time a had a Jay Bone itch I had to take care of. A slight "Dark Before Light" layer was added. You rarely see this with cell artwork and I've only done this when painting. I was less subtle than Bones but I found the results quite interesting. Check out J.Bones work here: http://gobukan.blogspot.com/

The background is the most fun part. It lets me know I can finish any time and play with brushes. I use a photographed texture as a base and just paint over it like a hooligan in ArtRage. Then paste it into Photoshop and adjust the levels and whatnot, all done!

I would have liked to have done this much more to Yvonne Craig’s likeness but when I toon stuff it all seems to disappear. Two things I need to do in the future is to learn how to caricature and how to water colour.

Adorable!

Supa Flats

2008-10-10T21:36:00.003+01:00

Me, as an animator and graphic designer, I dislike overworked, over rendered images (unless I’m painting anyway). I tend to prefer an animation cell style for my pieces soooo…I drop flats and call it quits lol. Well there’s more to it than that, colour balance is key, if your unlike me and know your colour theory you can do this very quickly.

Illustrator CS3 finally has a decent eraser tool but its still a poopy program if you want to work at speed. Here’s a vid how to use it provided by some kind YouTube dude: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnu8Rb4I7os&watch_response. You don’t have to go into the actual tab to do this, just select a line and hit “ctrl + E” to expand the lines.

At this stage my brain says “its done!” for some reason. I really want to get stated on another idea but conformity insists I add shading and lighting and other garbage to show I’m not lazy. When colouring the line art I very rarely make the lines brighter than the flats. It works for Sleeping Beauty but not for me.

I’ll explain how to use these tools properly another time but, here for shading or lighting I’ll use the pen tool. By the way if you don’t like hard edges use the blur tool not the blur filter. Blur filter much like gradients stinks of cheapness.

Lets Follow Through

2008-10-08T22:24:00.005+01:00

In Illustrator I usually put the sketch or scribble locked on the top layer with its opacity set to around 40%. Then below it the line art layer, this is so I can still see the sketch clearly.

I'll dash around the image dropping lines with overshoot/follow through where I can. I think this applies to inking in any program. It's by no means law though.

Batgirl Process Part 2

2008-09-30T22:36:00.005+01:00

After I've scanned it in I'll usually mirror the image and sort out any nit picks I don't like quite quickly. Not sure why, but the moment I mirror something I can see all the major mistakes. You can spend all day sorting all the nooks and crannies but as time flies so does its energy.

I know the conformist design choice is to have a very strait line where the red line is marked, but strait lines only work for me in action poses.

Look a me trying my hand at a caricature of a famous person. Don't think I've ever tried a caricature before, can you guess who it is? It doesn't seem exaggerated at all. I need to study more.

Batgirl Process Part 1

2008-09-29T01:32:00.007+01:00

This is for the few people that want to know my process.

I won’t talk about how I do it in depth just yet cause right now my style is fluctuating a bit too much. When I get my own voice and I’m sure I’m not talking to myself I’ll give y’all the whole low down.

This is a 10 or 20 minute scribble done right after the warm up at the bottom there. I don’t know why I drew this on the back of an envelope but that’s just how it started. It’s has a tonne of mistakes but that’s what photoshop’s for.

I can always see my mistakes but I hate using erasers.

King Kittan

2008-09-23T23:24:00.004+01:00

Few oldies and a semi-real Kittan which is part of a bigger piece.

The below one is an old embarrassment but it like the big head!

Another Test

2008-09-21T12:16:00.005+01:00

Just wanted to see how large I could post pics here so you all can see my dirty little mistakes. Oh, and an old brush pen scribble too. I love the Pentel brush pen and its edgy line breakage, I really do.

Blogger seems to have changed it to blue somehow.....fascinating.

Testing

2008-09-19T02:42:00.000+01:00

Hello Darkness my old friend.