I prefer the robot. All hail the overlords.

This weeks it's... well... I'm not sure if I'm honest. I drew this on the bus and decided to scan it in and clean it up. I think it would have been a lot easier if I had an eraser. No really, I drew it all in pencil then over with pen, only to realise I had no eraser, so that was a lot of time spent cleaning up in Photoshop.

Its just the flat colours; no highlights or shadows, this is always my first step when I colour something.

I'm going to go with steam punk(ish) mercenary, although there's a quality about the original I really like, it was going to be a robot.

Anyways, I'm off to bed, so see you next week!

It's Gone Crazy, Everypony!

Weclome to the (slightly delayed) start to another week. I am not going into the complete failure of trying to post this. Thanks technology, once again why we will never be best friends.



Anyways, *breathes* today I have a piece of requested fan art to show you. This is Scootaloo, a character from The Hub's My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. People who know me, are surprised I have kept this area of my life such a secret. The idea was for a messy, arty Scootaloo to be printed as a sticker for a class of Primary School kids.

She has been hand drawn, and blocked in on Photoshop. She is basic, but that was the request. It is an odd thing to be asked to draw a creation, which is not the same style as the original. She has made a group of 7 year old school kids very happy, on their first week back to school.

Silly Airships

So airship this week sounds fun! I thought I would throw in some additional challenges for myself this week. the first one was to use a software that I neglect rather often and that is Illustrator along with that challenge I thought I would record the creation of the image as well, so that is am other thing to do is to get that sorted out and edited down.

As you can see its more of a silly go at this type of thing using bright colours to show that and happiness to it as well. Created through the use of shapes and different gradient effects on it. It has been a while since I have last used Illustrator properly but this week been dabbling with it early on and thought I would give it a good shot. Just need to find some magazines I have that have some tutorials for using this software and practice them to get a better hang of it.

Ahoy! I see land! Of course you do, it's below us...

Yeah you get to see the messy pencils

So Sue's already told you it's theme week, and this time I get to draw something flight(y?) here's a quick sketch of an airship, my friends moving down to Manchester and had a leaving do, strangely exactly when I'd planned to clean this up. It's another one on my to-do list, I'll upload some other sketches I have, there were a few designs, I was playing with a wee fleet of airships.

I'll  probably do another version just to sort out some of the lines that don't quite fit and maybe some perspective fixes.

I think this would be a fun place to explore, a floating city of civilian airships.

Good luck and catch me next time.

Edit: Apparently I'd set this for tomorrow so here's the update.

I'm Flying High

This week we have a theme to work on. This to to create a bit of a challenge for all the artists involved. This week's challenge is aircraft/ flight. The idea is that the artist has to interpret that however they want. And as long as it is creative, there are no holds barred.

I decided I wanted a little bit of fun with this challenge, so I created a hot air balloon. Which was a lot of fun to make.

It is a little thing I made with paper and wool, reminiscent of the things I made at Primary School. I have name him Joe, and he is currently stuck on my wall. I created a small box out of paper, and the 'balloon' is basically a circle drawn round a CD. The balloon is spray painted, and the basket is coloured with pen. It was all stuck together with double sided tape, where I stuck it on the wall to photograph.

Then, when transferred into Photoshop, I used a photo I had taken of the sky, to use as a background. There was a lot of erasing involved, but it was pretty painless.

I wanted something I could physically make, and with the balloon I achieved that. I did find the task a bit of a challenge at first, because aircraft and the like, isn't something I ever really draw. Which is why, after a passing glance at Art Attack, on Playhouse Disney, I decided to make something. And the whole process was fun, and that is why I create things. For fun. It certainly made things easier once I decided how to make this challenge fun.

See you in a week. :)

Blue

So here we are again another week come and pass. Here we have an image that was created early on in the week (top) which I have just finished sorting out and creating the other image (bottom)

Attack of the stickmen!

So I've not had the chance to be as near my laptop as I'd like but I made a couple of fast drawings, I got a new brush pen for my birthday and wanted to try some scribbles to see what happened. The first two images were done in about a minute the second one was a little spaceman spiff inspired and the third one was originally a pencil sketch I made at work.

I like this pen a lot, but the ink isn't nearly as black as I'd like, when it runs out I'm going to try and use some nice ink (another birthday gift from the same friend) and see what happens. I may just buy a fine inking brush it would probably get me closer to the line thickness I'm looking for and give me some practise.

Here's another little thought for the week, I've noticed my figures and poses are sometimes really poor. So I'm trying to draw stick figures when I can see if that helps, I'd recommend other people go back to basics if something isn't working. I don't have any taught experience so I could be wrong about it, but I find it helps me.

I think after this I might start linking people to the blog, so again, feel free to comment or advise on anything here.

Sue reminises about the sea

Feeling a little bit sad this week. I holidayed in Blackpool, and I miss it. I like the idea of playing tourist, and having people cook my food. *cough* I guess one of the things I miss most, is starting off my day staring out to the horizon across the sea. It really makes you feel so small. Which, gets me too my piece for this week.



As I have said in previous posts, I don't do a lot of digital work. Most of my time on photoshop is spent experimenting, and most things happen by accident, like this. When on photoshop I tend to look at trying to make interesting shapes. I just mess around with filters, until I get something I like. That's what I can be like with my sketch book as well, so I guess it's quite good I am like that on the computer as well.

I have been playing around with photoshop more, and have been using my sketchbook more again too. Which is one of the main reasons I signed up for this project, so the fact that it is working is making it worth it already. So really happy about that. And I have a plan on future posts, so things are looking good.

So, I'll sign of now. Have a great week. :)

Red Monkey

 

Well this was created from a jokie thing I did on facebook or Bebo one of the two. Where for your update thing I just went and put in Red Monkey and this is what it looks like to me. I had a couple of friends then go naming other animals in different colours along with it. But the best one was that I got a reply back from Sue saying her orange penguin killed the red monkey. So now I am wanting to see that fight.

Emotion chips aren't all the hype.

The plan was to colour this robot and record it so that I could put it here but my recording software doesn't want to play ball,so instead, you get the draft and inked version to view. I'll be putting the coloured version probably with a bit more detail on the blog at some point.

I have MUCH bigger versions if anyone wants one. As long as you ask and give credit your welcome to use this draft/line art to practise inking/colouring.

Hope you enjoy it, I'm looking forward to the next one.

Sue Likes Watercolour

Watercolour is something that I took a long time to get used to.


Watercolour is a very difficult medium to use, mostly because it is something that is built up in layers. It takes a long time to finish a water colour. And it is very understated, in it's nature. It is light, and gives a completely different look to other types of paint.

The cottage above, is something that took me 2 weeks to paint. It was the first time I really used watercolour. It was a bit of a learning experience. It is best recommended to an artist who prefers a sketchy look for their work. Well, that's what I think anyway. If you are experimental with your work, then watercolour may be for you.

As I have said before, I like to use a variety of medium in my work. I guess, that's what I am using my first few post for. To show a variety of what I like.

digital creation

Hey, once again it's Friday.

Well this week I have been trying my hand at web comics and creating them fully through Photoshop. It's not easy as I discovered when i was doing this. It was my first attempt at this using Photoshop so it might not look the best but it was a fun to do and now I have 4 others waiting to be done now.

 

Like I said not the best thing in the world but I would say a good start at doing this stuff. All done through Photoshop and a graphic tablet (Wacom for the win). A quick run through of the process. 1) blue outline showing what I was going to draw. 2) Went over it in black on a new layer. 3) New layer under that adding colour to the image. very simple approach to it but it works. That is me for this week and I will have some to the those over web comics done for this or something else. Till then Cya.

Just wait till he gets grumpy

The Support Ogre

So this week I'm putting up the Support Ogre, it's an idea that came up while I was talking to a friend, they were talking about how intimidating it can be to go to the IT support for the first time, more so when you don't know much about it.

I'd considered making a whole set of short comics out of it but that's never really materialised... Maybe one day... I know I promised a blog about Photoshop brushes this week but it's been a bit of a topsy turvy time, I hope you enjoy this drawing there will be another next week!

Sue Scribbles With Pencils

Out of all traditional art materials, I have always found pencils the easiest to use. Mostly because there has always been some lying around. It is very easy to pick up a pencil and sketch something on a piece of paper. And anyone can do it, you don't need to read through tutorials or how-to guides. Anyone can pick up a pencil and draw. I think that's why I like it so much, because pencils are very accessible, and cheap. And they can help create the most wonderful pieces.

This Lhasa Lapso dog is a sketch of something which was my first commission. A colleague from my work asked me to draw a Lhasa Lapso for her mother's birthday, as they were her favourite dog. I did paint the dog in watercolour, and they got a printed version of this sketch. I personally like that you can see the pencil lines, but that is maybe just down to taste.

This horse, is another pencil creation. She has been dubbed Tegan, after a horse I used to look after when I was younger. I always wanted a horse to myself, and I used to spend a lot of my free time drawing horses. Drawing horses is an art form all on it's own, and I believe it is because they are so beautiful and majestic.

I feel too many artists dismiss pencils as a child's way of making art, and that saddens me. Just because you used them as a child, doesn't mean that they are for children. Pencils are the one medium you can carry with you anywhere. They add texture and shade instantly. I used any form of coloured pencil, and even have a batch from the local 99p store. I don't believe that it is the tool that makes the artist, it is the technique used by the artist who creates art. You can buy the most expensive products you can, doesn't mean you can be a successful artist.

And with that, I bid you farewell. So see you next week. xo