gfxdug.com

Old Bent Tree-Work In Progress (WIP)

gfxdug — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:51:17 +0000

*Someone* suggested to me that I post a Work-In-Progress of my Old Bent Tree illustration. So, here we are…

Keep in mind that I am always refining my own processes, so this is merely *one* way to do things. Also, for an ideal WIP series, there would probably be at least one step between the line drawing and this.

On this particular illustration, I am working solely in Photoshop CS3. At this stage, I have scanned in my line drawing, and done minimal cleanup on it. I may clean up the line in a much later stage, especially where the scan wasn’t the best. The line drawing is on a top layer in this case set to Multiply ( I am liking the quality of the line drawing in this case, so I am planning on keeping it rather than painting over it).

I picked a nice earthy tone for the background to start with and have painted in flat areas of color where I think I will be working in varying detail (this can always change). I am a bit of a layer fiend so I tend to keep these areas in separate layers at first. As I build the color and detail I will combine layers and work them together.

Because I was itching to develop the old tree guy (and to convince Diane I had something specific in mind for the color version), I have been developing the bark and ground texture detail. I have been doing all the bark by hand with a chalk brush in PS building the various layers of color. For the ground debris, I created a PS brush that looked like some dead leaves, sticks n such and varied the layers of color and size. I will be developing this more.

I am ready to start messing with the background now (I may mess with the rocks in front a bit too).

I’ll post the next steps as I go…

Walk in the woods

gfxdug — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:58:44 +0000

This past weekend I was able to go on a great hike with my family. Along the trail my daughter pointed out a cool bent tree which inspired me to do the sketch below. Planning on developing it further into a color version so it’s a WIP.

Orphaned Works…for real

gfxdug — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:11:18 +0000

I mentioned this pending bill in a previous post, well now it’s for real. I am not a lawyer, but I have read through both the House and Senate versions and, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t sound good for the creative community in general. Read them for yourself – here is a write-up on the bill at Drawn.com. If you feel as strongly as I do about the damage this could do then please contact your representatives in Washington.

15 “seconds” of fame

gfxdug — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:57:36 +0000

As some may have noticed, I have a link to my profile on the site Ziggs.com over in the right column. I have been registered with them, as well as many others, for a while in an attempt at increasing online presence in search engines and such. Recently, Zigg’s marketing folks contacted me because one of the local tv news stations here wanted to do a story on Ziggs and as part of that, interview a local registered user. So, anyway here is the interview online, click the tiny “video” icon to see it.

p.s. I realize my posts have been few and far between lately, sorry ’bout that…been trying to get my *stuff* together lately. Thanks -dug

ATTENTION ALL ARTISTS!

gfxdug — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:58:28 +0000

If you draw, paint, take photos (professional or personal), make home or professional video, sculpt, sew or do anything creative, then you should be aware of the Orphan Works legislation and be ready to speak out against it.

Legislators are trying to allow anyone to ”in essence” steal any creative work we have ever created.

This is not some “rah, rah” protesters call, I don’t do that…however, this legislation as it is currently written would be destructive beyond measure economically, creatively, and culturally.

Articles and interviews that can describe these issues much better than I can…

** EDIT 04-17-08 —-

A friend recently sent me a link to an article on Boing Boing that has some severe comments in response to the article I posted above… let’s just say they disagree a “little”.

I wasn’t aware of such a strong negative reaction to what I perceived to be the creative community’s view of this legislation. So, this is my reply to my friend…

…it’s becoming quickly evident that there are many (often inflammatory) opinions on either side of this issue. It really seems like it’s going to come down to reading the newly drafted, official bill once they release it…which they haven’t to my knowledge. For now, I’ll swing my legs on the side of the *perceived* fence that favors the artists rather than the bureaucrats, but to be fair I’ll reserve my flag waiving until we see the real deal.

I did find another “seemingly” neutral site made by some lawyer in DC about the legislation – ranted, I haven’t read through his whole site yet.

http://www.orphanworks.net

So, there you go…chaos ensues as is the case with most stuff like this. Now, I guess we wait and see.

gallery issue…oh, the fun

gfxdug — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:55:26 +0000

There appears to be something wonky with my gallery at the moment. I am using a WordPress plugin that pulls the images from my Flickr account. I may need to try another approach here. So, the gallery page may be on the fritz for a few days while I figure something out.

color sketches

gfxdug — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:43:17 +0000

Did a few color sketches recently. Playing with light & shadow, color, reflection…just trying out some things. Mostly done in Painter, but did use Photoshop a bit as well. Spent about 10-20 minutes on each (noodled a bit).Anyway, here are a few…

Illustration Friday - “Heavy”

gfxdug — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:37:30 +0000

I mentioned Illustration Friday in one of my previous posts, well here’s my first entry. “Heavy” is the topic word this week and I immediately thought of the dropping anvils on Looney Tunes that I used to watch all the time…I really miss those cartoons.I switched gears a couple times while doing this. I liked my sketches but thought I would try combining my sketches with the old Looney Tunes look.

Searching for style

gfxdug — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:49:43 +0000

Being a “jack of all trades” (or styles in this case) is great and all, but it can make things rather difficult. If you try to hold on to this Renaissance man-type persona and someone asks “What do you do?”…what do you say? If you start rattling off a list of talents and abilities, you might impress people but would they hire you? There’s that whole “…master of none” issue, not to mention the frustration of doing one type of task one day (say, illustration) and something else the next (web development, design, animation, etc.).

So, what I am exploring right now is illo style. I have emulated many styles in the past, which does come in handy, but one can lose (or never actually find) their own this way. In that vein, I have taken the sketch I posted on 3/01/08 and put a finish on it. As Chuck pointed out, I did this without a story to start from which seemed to slow me down a bit, but it was good to think through it. Here’s the “finished” piece.

I also found a great site called Illustration Friday that I am going to take a swing at. It helps with the “what do I draw” dilemma when your brain goes numb.

sketchin’

gfxdug — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:02:43 +0000

So, I am obviously not used to regular updates if you couldn’t tell, and I don’t think anyone is reading this anyway at this point…so, I will talk to myself for a bit.

Besides continually screwing with the site and figuring out what I can and cannot do with WordPress, I have done some sketching trying to get the creative juices flowin’.

I was sitting and looking outside at one of our wonderfully dreary days we’ve had lately and just started to sketch some trees, then a house, then more trees… I like what started to happen in this one and may take it a little farther with some color studies.

Yesterday, Diane and I were sitting around talking and I drew this little guy – I sometimes sketch around with fantasy characters (just sort of like them I guess).

So, there’s little slice from the last couple of days. I will make an effort to make more regular updates. I am not a talker by nature, so I need to get used to this.