Friday, December 18, 2009

My Digital Drawing Technique

This is how I tend to do my digital drawing in Painter.  It’s pretty much exactly like I would do with paper and charcoal, but I have UNDO!!  Anyways, this drawing isn’t finished.  I got to figure drawing late, so I was limited, and just like any lazy artist, I wait for the face, hair, and the hands until last.  I guess that’s why they are almost never there.  Anyways, here are the steps I go through:

1. First, I block out the forms and make sure my proportions are correct:

2. I create a second layer and keep “pick up underlying color” checked, then first wipe out the image using a blender brush, then lay down lines for form:

3. After that, I start another layer, and wipe the lines down so that they are not so harsh:

4. Once I have that done, I begin blocking in my light and shadow, and tightening up the edges a bit in places.  I like to have some tight edges and some soft:

5. In my last step, I now go through each part, tightening the drawing, adding shadows, core shadows, highlights, etc. :

So like I said, I didn’t finish this drawing, but I think it is a good example of how I work digitally.  Hopefully next time I’ll actually finish it.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Great Marcelo Vignali Interview

Thanks for the suggestion from my colleague Sam Nielson -

For those of you who don't know him, Marcelo Vignali is an amazing artist working at Sony Animation Studios. In this interview, he gives so much good information about being an artist in the industry today, it's hard to summarize. It's a good hour long discussion, but it's amazing to hear his thoughts on being and becoming an artist in this industry. I would recommend everyone watch it.