Sketch/Drawing
NIN Sketch
Digital sketch from poster reference of Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor’s face.
Wacom Pen Holder Sketch
Digital pencil and paint sketch of the pen holder for my Wacom Intuos graphics tablet.
Female Nude Figure
Pencil sketch of a female nude figure:
Demon Grub
More than anything, I think this was my way of doodling with colored pencils using my graphics tablet and Photo-Paint.
Grinning Character Face
This is an early drawing I did after getting my tablet. I played with plenty of pencil scribbles but this was one of my first uses of color and paint.
Net-Casting Spider Sketch
The first sketch I’ve done in a long time, this one was created in Corel Photo-Paint with a Wacom tablet. For reference I borrowed my wife’s excellent book on spiders, and this may have been the coolest spider shown!
Der Gruntlig
Now:
Sometimes I’ll still find myself ready to draw but nowhere near my computer. Though at the time of posting this it’s more that I haven’t actually done any drawing in a long time, digital or otherwise. Speed of life I suppose. Back on topic, this is one example of a traditional pencil drawing I enjoyed doing. It was much more about the inspiration than the medium.
Delilah: Contemporary Elf Chick Drawing
Now:
Drawing Delilah (no, not Running Delilah, though that may have been where I got the name) was fun. At this stage in my artistic development I was starting to do a few things right, like drawing from photo reference for a (meta)human figure, and drawing at a larger size (higher resolution) than the final version shown here.
Dawn Eye Sketch
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.
Creature Face Sketch
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).
Plasm
Now:
It seems strange to me how an image made so simply can still captivate the eye, if briefly.
This image definitely falls under the category of “happy accidents”; some people think that term applied to digital art is akin to stating an oxymoron as everything in digital art is precise and controlled. In fact, that’s not always the case.
Female Face Drawing
Now:
I remember this as one of the early drawings where I made use of reference. Drawing from a reference photo (probably a magazine) was a new thing for me at the time; it felt like it had to be cheating somehow. Nevertheless I had trouble getting proportions correct, and obviously the hair was a disaster. Then there was my inexplicable choice of presentation; it probably seemed like a good idea at the time to use some Photo-Paint effects.
I do feel that this piece works to show my skills progression, compared to others before and after it in my timeline.
