Orc-thing

Another Paper app post.  I'm struggling with whether or not I feel like I want to keep using this app or not.  It's fun.  But the brushes don't play nicely together.  Markers don't color over top of brushes very well, for example.  Colored pencil and pen seem to be the only tools that can go over the top of other tools.  It's a fun challenge, but is it a challenge that I want to take or is it a challenge that I'm forced to undergo because of the limits of the program?

Struggle bus

I'm playing with the Paper app by 53, and I'm using the Pencil stylus.  I'll admit that it is pretty fun, but it lacks a lot of things that I would think very important in a digital sketching app.  You can't color pick, and there are no layers.  You also cannot import pic or photos.

 The Pencil stylus is buggy for me at the moment.  Sometimes I will be painting, and all of the sudden it will smudge or it will erase.

Anyway I did this sketch of a bus.  I named it struggle bus because, well struggling.  

I will keep trying this app out, but I may return it before the 30 days and save for a stylus that offers pressure sensitivity.  We will see...

Coal Express

Merry Christmas!  When I set out to do this card I wanted to do a gamut mask.  As I was trying to figure out which colors to use, I started to get frustrated, and it wasn't going in the direction that I was seeing in my head.  I'm still trying to get comfortable with the whole gamut-masking technique, but I decided to try David McClellan's blog post about wams/cools/saturation.  I don't completely grasp it, however, I learned so much!  for example,

below, the image is completely done in blues, but the more desaturated, the color appears more red when next to the rest of the more saturated blues!  It's pretty fantastic.

I'd also like to note, that it was fun not using any layer effects or even any layers with opacity changes!  I used a gradient on the background, and I did a levels adjustment at the end because my monitor causes me to print too dark when I go to print things.  other than that it was our digital paint and no trickery.

above:  This was my original attempt with a gamut mask.  As you can see, I originally had a completely different direction in mine.  I hadn't gotten far before I got frustrated and wanted to try something else.

above: This was a little bit of value lay-in before I realized I needed to reach out to understand what I wanted to accomplish.  I didn't want it to be just blue, but wasn't sure how to introduce more color in to it so the image was color-cohesive.

sketchbook

Just a shot of a couple of my sketchbook pages.  the Mexican musician at the right spawned from the hat shape.  i can't remember why that shape was there, but I decided to brainstorm outwardly from it, and it grew into that, i guess.

the next page is just an orc-type creature.  I really don't like the confining space that a sketchbook provides, but it is important to keep sketching, and it's therapeutic even tho I throw plenty of tantrums in the name of suckery.

A knight, 3 men in a tub

a sketchbook spread.  I decided to take the knight into PS and paint him, but leave the other page in there as well.  I didn't use any reference of any kind, and it is evident.  I don't have references available when I'm drawing during my lunch hour in the car though, haha.  

I decided to use a super narrow gamut mask with a spot color.  I didn't end up using the blue.  I used the blue-green instead, for the atmosphere.  the image is really dark, but overall I really like the roughness of the brush that I am using.  

below is the gamut mask that I chose my colors from

Castle Orangeskull color

Im still trying to understand color gamuts and color/light.  It took me awhile to figure out what colors to use, and get comfortable using odd colors together.  I think I'm on the right track, but I'm not entirely happy with this.  There are things I really like about it.  

The learning process has been really fun.  If I could afford Sam Neilson's color class I would totally take it and I feel like I could really learn a lot.  some day maybe.

"By the Power of Orangeskull!  I have the power!!!!" 

haha.

The Frankensteins

Had some fun trying to understand gamut masking that I read about on James' Gurney's wonderful blog.  I'm trying to get a feel for choosing a color gamut and still be able to create colors and values.  I also tried a "traditional" brush that I hadn't really tried before, and I'm pretty pleased.  I really like some of the color variations that I was able to achieve.

I'm still uncertain if the color gamut masking allows me to use different values than are shown.  I mixed some of the colors, obviously, but doing it digitally is dangerous because it seems like I get outside of the gamut at times.  is that possible?  I'm not sure.  but I liked what happened on this one.

I would have liked to use some brighter values in some areas, but I also really like the feeling of this painting.  chalk it up to experience and learning from trial and error.

here is the Gamut that I but out and color-picked from.  I mixed colors from this gamut as well.