Fan/Gift Art Walkthrough: Secret Santas

I love creating fan art, and I don't do it enough. I also enjoy creating art for others, which is why I've frequently taken part in fandom secret-santa exchanges, mostly in Portal and Slayers fandoms. This time around, I approached them a little differently.

Normally, when I do a piece of art, I draw it all on one sheet of paper, pretty much going straight through on it. The downsides of that method is loosing the original sketches and being harder to correct if there are errors. This time I opted to use my lightbox and do the final pieces on fresh pages.

Both drawing were drawn on the back of some manga paper that I had, about 10"x14", to avoid the guidelines. As you can see below, I drew the rough lines for each picture in red and blue erasable color pencils.

I then inked each piece on a clean piece. For the Slayers image, I stopped at inking with Copic multiliners. For the overall piece, I drew inspiration at the recipient's request for "Netflix and chill," a more literal interpretation, and Candyland. My idea is that the gang found a visual archive while searching for some treasure and artifacts and have been bingeing on some history vids for the last day or so, only to be surprised by some twist that everyone, except for Gourry, was not expecting. The Candyland ref comes in the form of the figure in the "video." Guess who it is.

For the Portal image, I pushed on to coloring it in Photoshop. I really wanted to make it clear that poor GLaDoS was covered in Christmas lights, which I couldn't pull off in black and white. It really gets across the ridiculousness of the situation.

Working on Digital

It's been a while since I've posted here. Most of my art has shifted over to my Tumblr blog, which is where I'll post most of the work for the Daily Sketch Challenge artwork and finished pieces. But I'd like to continue to use this blog as a place to document in more detail my artistic growth, including my personal frustrations and inspirations.

This currently includes working on overcoming my block when it comes to doing art digitally. I have used digital tools for years for coloring and adjustments, but I have never made the leap to drawing and really painting on the computer. Hell, I'm still working on learning this stuff in traditional media. Trying to learn both traditional and digital at the same time is probably asking for trouble. But I am really tired of not taking advantage of the tools I have, namely the strengths that come from using art software such as Photoshop and Manga Studio. To help with this, I've started some self study and some lessons over at the Chris Oatley Academy (as in just started getting familiar with the site and community, not even doing the first assignment yet).

FYI, the below are pretty much on my own and are not a reflection of any of the lessons at the Academy. These were attempts at just getting used to drawing on the tablet.

 Pretty bad aren't they? But someone has to start somewhere. The greatest problem I have, be it traditional or digital, is where to start. What should I practice? Should I work on portraits? What about landscapes? Anatomy? Perspective? Tone and value? Master studies? Still life? Too many options to choose from!

I have a lot of resources to choose from, both self study and with the Oatley Academy coursework. I will get a handle on this. I will do studies and I will apply what I learn to personal work. I will get better, and I will get past my block when it comes to digital.

speedpaint

Decided to try a speedpaint. I don't really do them, thought it'd be a good exercise. I have a ways to go with digital coloring. Ref photo from Character Designs. Time, ~30min.

color study one

CA.org has a wonderful mentoring section where people can learn a number of art skills. A number are for mentors and select mentorees only, but a few encourage following along. This is one I did from Jens's color studies thread. First time really doing a digital painting like this. Glad they're supposed to be simple.