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Now on Society6!
Finally, got a print store up, and I decided on Society6 because I really like their style and quality. Plus, they're real easy to use and I saw a bunch of artists I like are part of their community.
So, check it out and I'm uploading new prints everyday, just in case you don't see the piece you're looking for up yet.
HULK!
I loved The Avengers movie, it was a great summer blockbuster popcorn flick. Marvel has been killing it with their movies lately. I would've draw some Iron Man and Thor fan-art if I wasn't so scared of all the freaking details in their costumes. I'll get to them eventually, probably Loki too...
Anyways Hulk has always been one of my favorite characters, what's not to love about a super angry, giant green monster that is technically infinitely powerful? Plus, he's a blast to draw, there's so many different way to interpret him. You can really tell a lot from an artist depending how they draw the Hulk.
Personally, I think the movie got a great balance between comic booky and real life. I think the little gut he had in some scenes was a great touch, haha.
So, I wanted to start with a face study before i move on to tackling a full body or even a group piece. The red is because my eyes are started to get bored of just black and white. Plus, Hulk is ANGRY!
These 2 are me finally venturing out into adding full color into my inks. I feel the bold, bright colors are the only way to contrast with the heavy black in the inks.
Plus, I'm learning that I can't simply wait until I finish the inks before throwing the colors on. The best way would probably be wait until I'm half way through the inks, throw in some rough colors, and then finish both at around the same time. I think I started thinking about these colors in a bit too late. It's hard to switch mindsets when you feel a piece is almost finished.
All in all, learned a few new tricks for the next round. Expect more color pieces to pop up. Plus, I have some spare finished pieces sitting around I haven't posted yet.
Prints: Hulk-Red / Hulk-Neon / Hulk-Green
Batman + Inking Tutorial
Since I get this question pretty often, I'm going to go through the brushes I use for my digital inking and also go through the process of a piece from start to finish.
First off, the brushes. I usually only stick to 2 main brushes and use a mix of scratchboard and inking techniques. The first is just the plain old standard round brush which I use for all the drawing and detailing. The second is the round bristle brush in cs5 which I use for most of the crosshatching, texturing and shading.
One big thing to remember though is that the brushes are only half of it. The other half is getting into the Scratchboard/Inking state of mind. The trick to this is to be constantly switching between drawing with black and also white, pulling out the lights, pushing back the darks, and just playing with the values until you get a look or texture that you like.
It'll be easier to see and explain in the process shots.
Here's the first stage to any piece, the rough sketch. I noticed since middle school I just default to drawing Batmen since it's so fun, it just happens naturally and I can just shut off my brain and draw.
A plain profile shot against a solid black background felt too boring, so I threw down some rain lines.
At this point you want to start blocking out the main light and dark values, but you also want to play around and experiment as much as you want. Later on you can decide what elements you want to develop and and what parts you're just going to blot out. So it's pretty much a free for all.
Plus, towards the end it'll be easier to see what works and what doesn't.
Around this point I realized if I'm going to have him in the rain I should work in some water flowing down his mask, also it'll add an extra element for you eye to follow.
It's important at these early stages to start thinking what kind of flow your piece will have.
Here I'm just fleshing out the face and the mask and playing around with the water and splashes. Its starting to become a dance between making it too busy/overworked or plain/boring.
This stage is more clean up. Smoothing out the shadows and blacking out any stray marks that I feel don't add anything to the piece.
It's also important not to smooth everything out too much. You want to keep some of the freshness and spontaneity from the original sketch. It'll go a long way to making the piece feel alive.
Around this point I hit a wall. I kept working and working it. But it still was't looking how I wanted.
Moments like these are pretty common and I've always found that the worst thing you can do is to try and muscle through. You'll only end up frustrated or even worse, you'll ruin the piece. The best trick is to flip the image horizontally to see it in a new light or take a break to come back with fresh eyes. I did both and it did't work. So I used another trick.
I lasso tooled the jaw and mouth and started distorting it and playing with the proportions. Sometimes you have to listen to your instincts ad trust your eyes. I knew something was off, but it wasn't until I started moving things around that I finally saw that his face was too long.
And here we're at the final stages at last. I waited till the end to overlay some rain on top because you don't want to overload your eyes while your working with a piece thats too busy.
And here's the final piece after some tweaking, smoothing and lots of second guessing.
All in all, I hope this process helps some of you to play around. I realize the way I work is very messy and unorganized. And it's not for everyone, because it's even tough on me sometimes. Each layer and each stroke is a gamble. I look back on all these step and find myself wondering "Is the water too distracting? Is the rain on top too busy? Would the composition be stronger if the head was blacked out? etc, etc." In fact I almost prefer the version without the overlaid rain and water.
But, in the end you can listen to these little voices and always have doubts, or you can say "fuck it.", keep working, move forward and don't look back.
Because in the end, your choices are what makes your pieces unique.
Print: Batman-Rain
Marceline's Dad + Progress
Here's the fourth in the Adventure Time series, Marceline's Dad. I think I'll probably do a few more versions of him, maybe even a battle scene with Finn. He's just such a crazy character, even for a Show like Adventure Time. I mean he pretty much murdered everyone on his first appearance, Everyone. Sure they came back to life. But, still. Pretty Effed up.
I also managed to save some progress shots, something I'm trying to get in the habit of lately. I actually thought I had saved more for this guy. But once you really get in the groove, you kinda lose track of time and just go into autopilot. Now it's just a matter of training myself so that saving progress becomes a habit.
The initial sketch.
Progress and cleanup.
And after that I went straight to the final. But, as a bonus I also have a potential color experiment. Still not sure if this ones getting color, just gotta keep tinkering with it and trying different stuff.
Ice King
Continuing on with the Adventure Time series, I tried my hand at the Ice King. I was excited for him because he's one of the characters that I can actually push the details and really make him gruesome but still keep him true to the original.
I was a little unsure about making him blue since I like keeping my inks clean, but in the end I think it added more than taking away. Either way here's a copy of the black and white version.
The next two in the series are actually already complete, Jake and Marceline's Dad. Marceline's Dad has to be my favorite so far, I really went all out making him crazy scary. There's not really many characters in the Adventure Time universe I can go all out on without changing their actual base design.
Well, actually they aren't 100% complete. I'm trying to stick to this black and white + 1 color scheme to these pieces, and that's the point where I'm struggling to find out what works best.
Print: Ice King