3D Metropolis

Now:

The neat thing about trying out my then-new Wacom tablet in Corel Photo-Paint was that it made drawing both familiar and completely new at the same time. It wasn’t until some time after this sketch that I arrived at pencil settings I liked, yet the experimental settings used in this piece were fun.

Drawing on the tablet but looking at the results on screen took a little getting used to, but once I got over that I realized it offers one big advantage: I never had to worry about my drawing hand obscuring some part of what I was working on (let alone smudging it unintentionally).

I look back on sketches like this now and wonder why I don’t seem to have time for them any more; shouldn’t I be able to make time? Hmm…

Then:

This little creature is not the kind of thing I’d normally draw, yet somehow he came about, seemingly on his own, as I was trying out sketching on my computer. Probably a result of glancing through books of artwork by Keith Parkinson and Larry Elmore, he’s a wizened, leathery-skinned old fellow who would probably be wearing robes and fit into a fantasy village somewhere.

The first sketch I did using Corel Photo-Paint 10 and my Wacom Intuos graphics tablet. I found it amazingly intuitive and just as fun to work with as real pencil, but without the dirty fingers afterward. From now on most of my sketches will probably be done on computer, it’s incredibly friendly to work with and offers so many possibilities.

This image was created on January 20, 2001.