3D Metropolis Digital Art, Writing, and more by Scott Drake

Now:

As this was something like the second drawing I made with my Wacom tablet and Corel Photo-Paint, I fell into a trap that snares many new digital artists. The final presentation of the art is the same resolution as the original working copy. I drew it at 1:1 of the final size. Or put another way, I didn’t realize I could have been drawing at a very large size and then reducing it for the final presentation.

This is important for essentially the same reason that drawing instructors tell students to draw big (not that I ever spent time in art classes, to my detriment). It’s a way to let the small shakes and defects blend and get smoothed out as you resample the image down to presentation size.

And yes, the title is a reference to Joseph Linsner’s goddess of life and rebirth.

Then:

Eyes have always held a fascination for me. In expressing an emotional state, real tears can carry an important depth of feeling, as well as a link to the eye which is often a focal point of emotional intensity. Tears of blood seem particularly intriguing to me, combining different metaphors that all signal terrific importance. This sketch is a common doodle of mine, a favorite symbol that I draw whenever I feel a wellspring of emotions bubbling inside that can only seem to escape through tears of blood.

In Corel Photo-Paint 10 the problems with Wacom graphics tablets finally seem to have been solved, and this is one of the first sketches I created with those tools. Drawing on screen seems highly intuitive to me, and it is likely I will skip my sketch pad and go straight to my computer whenever I’m drawing at home.

This image was created on January 25, 2001.