Them there lines and funny figures.

Its been a bit since I last posted, so I figured this ought to feature some quality eye candy and a bit of insight. I've been rendering some of the final line art for characters in Arcane Knights, and thought I would share a bit of that as well as some process show & tell. The first pic details two playable female characters up on one sheet:

They read well at a distance, and when magnified display quite a bit of detail. This deviates from the painterly style I usually post here, but the process of creating line art for the characters requires me to be explicit with my designs, which aids the 3D artists when they set out to render one of these characters. When painting I can imply detail with a few quick values and let the viewer's eye fill in the rest. Since this is a bit different situation, I thought I would show the process with another playable character from the game, Winton (he's a bomb-chucking wizard).

He comes off pretty sassy. Again, he reads from a distance. Here's a close-up:

I used two brushes with identical dynamics, only one painted black and the other erased. This is a first generation line drawing, meaning that I didn't do a rough sketch and then trace over, but instead drew roughly and messy and continued to draw and erase, draws and erase. This kept the rough, gestural marks in the linework, which tends to keep things a bit more dynamic and alive. In pretty much any art program you can toggle between two brushes like this with hot keys, and its a method exclusively available to the digital medium (just try it with a pencil, wise guy).

After the line work is done, on a layer below, I paint in a 50% greyscale mask to begin toning, like so:

I do this so that I can use layer modes to paint more values and eventually color into the character. Again, this is a feature common to the majority of painting programs, and you'll see it in everything from concept art to comic books to industrial design. I've found on more than one occasion that if this silhouette doesn't read well, it means I need to fix the drawing before proceeding.


After that I start adding lights and darks, like so:

At this point, the drawing provides more than enough information for a 3D artist to build the character. All the details have been designed and clearly drawn and all the volumes have been indicated. I also added some toothy background texture to sell the drawing to interested parties. He can also be colored any which way with overlay or multiply layers, keeping everything nice and non-destructive. Word!

I intend to share some more info on the creation of digital art using Linux based software soon.

Also, I'm always available for commissions for a wide variety of subjects and media, so drop me a line and let's make some sweet art! Thanks!

Notes from the Book of Work-Doodles

Sketchbooks save minds. A quick dash in the sketchbook can help keep you sharp on days that you can't devote a lot of time to finished pieces. Its also a great opportunity to work out some design problems, wrestle with difficult subjects, and prepare for executing fully-informed larger pieces.

Sketchbooks defy sacredness. Sketchbooks should be foul, nasty, scribbled/painted-in, bloody, imperfect spaces where your job is to experiment and screw up as much as possible. No blank sheet deserves the deference given to a blank canvas. A good tip for breaking ones' habit of fearing the blank page of the sketchbook: draw only in pen for a month, working as quickly as you can, and do it every day for that month. This will help you grow comfortable with screwing up, building the confidence to roll with mistakes. Ink may be unforgiving in its permanence, but your design mind will find ways around even the worst screw-ups if you let it.

I thought I would post a few sketchbook drawings here with the hope that other folks making art in the gaming world would be willing to share some highlights of theirs as well.

This is a sketch I made on some downtime at work for Robert Parker's adaptation of the Beastmaster class for his game world, Krul. The following sketch came from the shape of my boss's nose, and from there I imagined a space-faring religious zealot. I think the vacant/reverent look captures the idea pretty well for a sketchbook entry.

Also, I like to throw in some acid-tinged idea collages together with some watercolor and ink, like this:

I like bug people - here's a digital mash-up of three bug dudes from the sketchbook that I drew in the same afternoon using a Pilot V-5, a white China Marker, and some saliva:

I also like to keep it pastoral, in this case using the same tools as with the bug people:

Some sketches demand more time, some only a few minutes. Every one of these has mistakes throughout, but the sketches still come out all right, and more often than not I end up learning something or plotting a better way to draw something in the future. If you have some pieces to share from your sketchbook or happen to know someone who does, let me know! Dig.

Open Source Solutions and a Couple Tutorials

All hail! I've been working hard lately on a number of freelance projects as well as making headway for the Arcane Knights video game. All my output for these projects is executed in open source software, and I am but one of a growing crowd of artists choosing this path as opposed to using proprietary programs. I would like to speak briefly about my work flow for a typical project and what would be analogs in the proprietary world.

For most illustrations I start out by using MyPaint, which is somewhat equivalent to Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro or Corel's Painter. For a lot of digital artists, the process begins and ends with Photoshop, which is an admittedly badass program, but I prefer MyPaint for its highly flexible brush engine and infinite canvas. It supports decent layer functions, outputs to a growing variety of formats (.png - solid and alpha, .jpg, .tiff, .bmp, and the powerful .ora), and eliminates distractions from the task at hand - creating. The hotkey system is a cinch, customizable, and can be assigned to buttons on your Wacom tablet or a number of supported off-brand tablets. Needless to say, I rely on this smooth program as my primary.

For image editing, I will bounce my paintings into the GIMP. Thousands of folks have posted useful blog entries about various flavors of the GIMP in the past, so I don't intend to speak too much here. Its the Photoshop equivalent in the open source world, and it stands out more and more as newer versions of P-shop slowly remove various functionalities that were once assumed to be universal and basic components. Moreover, you can download a plug-in for GIMP to support the .ora format native to MyPaint, which is HUGE in terms of manipulating heavily layered paintings generated in other open source programs in a standardized format.

Third, I use Inkscape for my vector work. Tracing raster images, building clean and/or complex layouts and logos, or designing and outputting web graphics are the key tasks for which I deploy Inkscape the most. It has a little way to go before it catches up to Adobe Illustrator, but it supports layers, swatches, channels, tight node editing, and so forth - and it plays well with tablets to boot. You can output to darn near any file type imaginable, including a lot that I've never heard of, and I've had considerable success importing .ill files from Illustrator!

If you have any suggestions or ideas on 2D work flow in open source software, feel free to email me or comment below. Meanwhile, I've assembled a two-part tutorial on Youtube detailing some speed painting and rendering techniques, please check them out! Audio was recorded using Audacity and video was recorded using RecordMyDesktop and edited with OpenShot. Cheers!

Speed Painting Demo - Part 1
Speed Painting Demo - Part 2

Throne of Lies, or black metal goes Montucky Mountains

Erin Gillett can shred. And shred and shred and shred. He shreds more upon waking up than most rockers do when fully warmed up, onstage in front of  a packed house, and 3 shots of whiskey into a hard rock tunnel. Which might be why I like him so much, enhanced by the fact that this Montana boy does Black Metal like nobody's business. I wrote a year-end review over at the Modus Operandi zine blog featuring some of my favorite local bands this year. I hadn't met Erin yet, but I had to mention Throne of Lies out of respect for their sheer radness.

Later I was lucky enough to be approached by Erin at a show and asked to whip up a Throne of Lies band logo. Apparently, Rachid from Zebulon Kosted had told Erin that my design work might be up his alley. Lucky me! I busted this puppy out during a week in which I had 4 other deadlines, but I believe it came out more awesome than it would have on a quiet week. I have included both raster and vectorized versions for your perusal, although the vectorized piece is actually just a .png of the vector itself.

Raster:

and vectorized:

You can notice some subtle differences in cleanliness and detail, so there you go. I would like to link to Throne of Lies website, but alas, there is none to be had yet. I will, however, post more about them as they expand their empire of villainy. Hit me up if you like what I'm doing, need a logo made, or would just like to talk about, you know, things 'n' stuff. Peace!