My Sister the Freak.....

......is a new web comic, by Dani Jones! It is being launched on March 12th,2010. I've mentioned Dani here before. She is this super cool children's book illustrator who broadcasts live drawing, painting and digi work over on ustream, every morning at 10 am est, Tues. through Friday. You can ask questions, make comments, etc. She is really nice and she makes her art look so easy, even though it isn't! She has quite a few shows recorded, if you want to check her out right now. The link is up there, or you can click here. So, mark your calendars, add her page to your favorites and check out "My Sister the Freak"!! You can also find awesome tutorials, and her portfolio on her blog, DaniDraws.com. Enjoy, and have a fantastic day!! :D

Coloring In Photoshop

I have been practicing coloring in Photoshop this week, and this is the sketch I came up with for my experiment.

Experiment you ask? Why yes, thanks for asking. Anyone that uses photoshop probably knows that there are literally hundreds of brushes at your disposal. Add to that all the different settings you can apply to them, and your choices are astounding. If that isn't enough, merely do a search for Photoshop Brushes, they are out there, by the thousands eagerly awaiting your hard drive. Armed with so many choices I didn't know where to start. But start I did! And, let me tell ya, you need not worry. You can simply and painlessly open a new document in the size of your choosing, pick a brush that appeals to you for whatever reason and start playing. See what all the different textures do, if multiply reacts differently to your brush than say, color dodge, and my goodness is it ever FUN! Now I know this sketch, let's call him, "lil dood", that I am about to show you is by no means perfectly redered. Far from it. And that's ok. What he IS, is practice. WHat he is, is 2 hours of yesterday evening. And what he did is make me feel like a kid with a new coloring book and a new box of crayons. A box of crayons with millions of colors! Suffice it to say that I thoroughly love coloring in photoshop. I love adding a watercolor texture to my brush and using a clipping mask. I have Dani Jones to thank for that most glorious of tutorials. Here is a link if you want to check that out. Here is part one, for the digi stampers out there, take note that this first part teaches you how to remove the line drawing from the background. You know what that means??!!?? It means if you download a digi stamp in .jpeg format, you can use this tut to remove the line art from the background! WHich is fabulous if you want to color said image in photoshop before printing it out. Follow the tut, it makes more sense than I do. Next is part two, where she teaches you how to use a clipping mask. Masks are one of the things in any photo editing program that I couldn't wrap my brain around. No matter how much I read about them I just didn't get it. But, I finally understand them and some of what they can do. The colorful version of , "lil dood".

I am putting him here to remind me what I can do and where I started :O) My hope is that I will continue to do this and see an improvement in my work as I progress. Special thanks to Dani Jones for so graciously sharing her process and her talent with the world at large :) She is currently in the middle of her "12 days of A Christmas Carol". SHe paints a character each day Tues. - Friday at 10 am est. And on Fridays she holds a drawing and the lucky winner gets a print of each of the characters she has drawn for that week. All you have to do is show up and log in to your ustream account. Click the link up there and click on blog to read all the deets, or just click here . On another note, how great would it be if she created digi stamps??!!!

Working in Photoshop

I was watching Dani Draw yesterday morning when someone in the USTREAM chat room asked if any of us had seen Mark Crilley on Youtube. After her show was over (Dani inspires me to draw everyday, if you haven't checked out her show, you should. Tell her sleep_pea sent cha. You can also view recordings of her daily shows on her ustream page Here is a link in case you want to check her out, Dani Draws ;)I simply love her style and wish she would sell some of her images as digital stamps.), I went and checked out Mr. Crilley on YouTube.com. He creates Manga (a Japanese graphic novel, typically intended for adults, characterized by highly stylized art.) characters in his videos which are easy to follow, and packed with information. He has videos that show a breakdown of placing the facial features. I think the part that shocked me the most is how much lower on the face the eyes are placed, compared to where I generally put them. I added the video I watched, but there are several others to choose from, simply go to youtube.com and do a search on Mark Crilley (or just click the links).

Armed with the knowledge from the video, I turned to Photoshop and my tablet and tried my hand at creating a character. This is the first one I did.....

Uhhhh yah. Damn lol. Uneven, big eyes and her chin is pointy as hell. It was fun drawing digitally tho.
This one is my second try.....

Again she isn't perfect but I think a lil better than the first, which is enough to keep me practicing, which is half the battle for me :). As always, thanks for stopping by!!! Before I go though, I would like to add a special Thank You to the artists out there, like Dani and Chris that so generously offer their skills up for the general public to read, watch, and absorb. I have learned alot.