Gnabbist

Thirty Day-- Finale

2012-02-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

In under the deadline...!

Something You Don't Like

Someone You Love [Note that the Gnabbist Witness Protection Program is still in effect...]

Anything You'd Like

A Place You Want To Go

A Congratulations Banner for Finishing the Challenge

Thirty Day, Continued

2012-02-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

A few more...

Something New

Something Orange

Something You Miss

Something You Need

A Couple

Scenery

Thirty Day

2012-02-17T14:59:00.000-08:00

So, there's a 30 Day Challenge running over at the R3 forum... and it finally occurred to me,about 60% of the way in, that some of these might not go too far wrong here at the blog as well.
Images are linked to their respective forum threads, for context.

Word ["Zaftig"]

Inspiration

Doodle ["Do or Die"]

Family Picture

Favorite ~~Fairytale~~ Faerie Tale

Candy

Turning Point

TV Show

Favorite ~~Animated Character~~ Animator, Caricatured

Book Character

Favorite Place

Favorite Food

Happy ArboSecreHalloMas!

2011-12-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

TRDL thom wrote:

Surprising precisely no one, this week's theme is the Holidays. Draw any character celebrating the holidays in any fashion. And if you aren't into the December holidays of any of the religious or cultural flavors, it's never too late to aim backwards and pull out a Halloween piece... or an Arbor Day special... or hell, a Secretary's Day pic wouldn't kill us!

Uhhh, okay.

Noir

2011-11-27T09:22:00.001-08:00

"I kept a wary eye on my customer. Among my people, the cunning of the Humans is legendary. Especially their females."

This was done for the annual Noir Jam at R3, held in honor of Vlad Fiks. Along with the Noir genre, another of his areas of expertise was retro sci-fi, so I blended a bit of both for this image.

That's Tracy again, one of my repertory company of actors. I promise, the bobbed hair is temporary-- we only shortened it in CGI... 8^j* Across the table is a Daz Sea Dragon, wearing a spacesuit made from a Daz Spuggles character-- perhaps an ominous sign.

The Line-Up [alternate]

2011-11-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

Now that's what I call a Magic Mirror...

The Line-Up

2011-11-17T08:40:00.001-08:00

Here's a line-up featuring three ladies from the Central Casting department at my studio: Magenta, Susan, and Tracy. Although I've muddled the measurement function somewhat with the poses, hair, and camera angle, you can get a fair estimate by sighting between the top of each figure and her reflection. On the left, we have the standard Victoria 4 height of about five feet, ten-and-a-half inches. Our cheerful vehicle operator is around five foot seven, while the 1960s-esque blonde bombshell tops out at pretty much exactly five foot nuttin'.

Susan's basic proportions, although obviously dependent on some of the zaftig settings provided by the Morphs++ package, are otherwise remarkably straightforward V4 scaling tweaks. Overall scale, 90%; hip, 102%; thighs, 87.5%; shins, 91.5%; abdomen, 90%; upper arms, 87%; forearms, 95%. Using Morphs++ again, her head was scaled up by 4 percent, while her feet and hands were scaled down by 2 percent and 4 percent, respectively. If you want to stick with freebies, Les Bentley's "Show Scale Dials V4" should provide what you need. (Just be sure to read his excellent notes.)

Wardrobe Credits:

Magenta:
- Evilinnocence's Bra for V4
- The skirt from Terrymcg's Cosplay Costume 10 (I squished the waistband down a little.)
- StudioArtVartanian's C-String (not visible from this angle, but a nifty item.)
Susan:
- Morphing Glasses (about halfway down that page) by Adam Thwaites
- Marco's Tied Top for V4
- Sunny Bikini (well, part of it, anyway) by bucketload3d
Tracy:
- SickleYield's Free Wrap Top
- JoEtzold's S.H.A.D.O. Uniforms ("SD-Pant")

Hair and textures are as credited in their respective original appearances. Although I did expand the bun on Magenta's hair, given the Big Hair proclivities of her companions here...

Fab Gear

2011-09-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've been rebuilding my rendering setup on a newer machine-- still obsolete, of course, but considerably faster than what I had been using. As I gradually got the libraries transferred (and, I hope, better organized this time), the "Challenging 60's Fashion Challenge" was the first R3 jam I managed to contribute to.

I reused one of my old lighting sets and cranked it up to (ahem) period-appropriate saturation levels...

·
·
·

"People, people-- listen up. We got an announcement. Stay away from the brown acid, man. It's a bad trip."

Credits, Hers:
She's an instance of DAZ3D's Victoria 4.2, customized for a 60s ingenue effect. (More on this in a follow-up post.) Her skin texture is "Isa," from a DAZ bundle (Aiko 4 Starter Pack, I believe) acquired who knows when. Definitely assists her plausibility. And their "Flip" hair, although designed for a previous generation of Vicki, matched the look well. JoEtzold's S.H.A.D.O. uniforms and party clothes provided her outfit.

Credits, His:
He's a plain stock Michael 3, also from DAZ3D, wearing the 3 piece suit and "Flat Top" hair they designed for him. I suppose I could have customized him at least a little bit-- but he had just the right doofusy look straight out of the box.

Credits, Setting:
The Wavy Gravy floor pattern is by the brilliantly talented and staggeringly generous Nobiax, whom you can visit at his DeviantART gallery. This is but the slightest hint of the superb textures and models he's released as freebies. (!) That dome is one of my set pieces, wearing its original colors in its five material zones. Dunno if the fact that those were already period-appropriate is disturbing, or merely inevitable... 8^j*

Kahhma

2011-05-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering why that CGI Ahhnold is being mean to my avatar, the context is available (as it so often is) at the R3 forum.

Credits:
scott8539 - T2 Morph for M4
dyald - Fable for M4 (+ update)
Vacasoft - GuyVest
mrsparky - French Village
richabri - Fire Hydrant (from New Graffiti Wall)
Null Entry - No Nose Morph (requires postwork)
Philosopher's Egg - No Ears Morph (requires postwork)
DAZ3D - Stylin for M4, BMX Bike, and, of course, the Michael 4 figure.

modpods

2011-01-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

This was my first attempt (4th revision) at sculpting some "conforming" clothing, finished in early December. As usual, I've been a bit distracted with other stuff since, but finally got back to genning up some demo pics for the blog.

Connoisseurs of what is, in my humble opinion, the finest erotic science fiction graphic novel on the web will recognize the "re-imagining" [Hollywoodspeak for "blatant remake"] of Lucy Lastique's original costume-- her remarkably convenient ["SPROING!"] Deltiles.

The set is the "Cliffside" mesh by S L F, smoothed slightly, and with a simple planar UV map applied. Its textures are FranOnTheEdge's RustingGreenishPaint for the diffuse channel (tinted a bit), with ConcreteOldLichened as the bump map.

Our model's hair is, once more, by the indispensible Kozaburo -- this is his second Updo, with a texture of my own trial-and-error devising.

Finally, the brilliantly talented Reciecup created the delectable "Doll" skin texture. Again, I applied some tinting-- although the hue was inspired by her other fantasy characters.

I don't suppose there's an amateur photographer alive who could resist using a naturally-occurring frame in the scenery like this...

Hmm. It does seem a bit dodgy to apply the term "naturally-occurring" to a virtual universe, doesn't it? But what the heck, it conveys the idea.

Flyers

2011-01-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

R3 Jam: Flyers

Here are my avatar and his sweetie, aboard (for the moment) a Flexible Flyer™.

Obviously, thanks & apologies go to Bill Watterson. Now I see why he chose to draw a toboggan for this situation, during those eleven years...

Gnabbist

Is it Live, or ... ?

2010-12-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

After seeing an image from a Morgan brochure, I couldn't help but wonder whether perhaps the company hadn't yet built a copy of the vehicle-- and therefore, hadn't actually photographed it.

So I tried a small feasibility study:

Although my "lacquered aluminium" surface settings aren't quite up to their contractor's skill level, I think that's more a matter of my relative inexperience, rather than any intrinsic limitation in the consumer-grade gear I'm using. Still, the demonstration was sufficient to satisfy me that the original image was, beyond a reasonable doubt, synthetic.

[2011/01/15: Edited to expand technical mumbo-jumbo content.]

For any DAZ Studio aficionados who wander by, this character is a nearly stock Victoria 4.2, with just two Stephanie 4 head morphs, plus a smidgen of The Girl 4-- the latter used mostly for adjusting her head-to-body ratio:
- Grace (Head) 66.7%
- Lily (Head) 33.3%
- The Girl 4 (Head) 12.5%

Her top is Jan19's Coed Chic - the Layered Look. The stretch pants are from JoEtzold's S.H.A.D.O. Uniforms packs (specifically, the HQ-Pant item.) And her slippers can be found in Richabri's V4 Lacewear set.

That hair billowing in the slipstream is from the Project Sailor Moon page at The Realm of Savage. Remarkably versatile, despite having been designed for a specific character.

Montecristo Habana Cigar Fake

2010-12-01T06:09:00.001-08:00

Under the raptor-eyed vigilance of its Moderators, spam around the R3 Forum generally evaporates quicker than a midsummer's dew. But on this occasion, I happened to be logged in early enough to witness the Dadaistic splendor of "Free Image Gallery Cigars: Montecristo Habana Cigar Fake" (or whatever the exact subject line was.) I ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, how could any absurdist cartoonist reasonably be expected to forego that opportunity? Hence the costume vaguely reminiscent of early 19th-century dress, as a nod to Monsieur Dumas, and the digital fakery (of yellow sticky note technology.)

No actual yellow sticky notes were harmed during the production of this image.

Sculpting a Humanoid

2010-11-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well, this time, the special the DAZ3D folks ran was on their sculpting app-- so I took a break from chipping away at Blender's brobdingnagian learning curve, to start chipping away at Hexagon... Here's the result of running through the documentation's first tutorial, "A Wild Space Creature."

And, for the sake of silliness, here's a render with a sci-fi wall panel texture applied, such as you might see in an old first-person shooter game. This one is from Bogwoppet; his gallery on ShareCG is well worth checking out, especially his rendered backdrop images.

I haven't tried rigging this for posing; that's a while 'nother kettle of tutorials, and I rather suspect that a bit more planning and tweaking are required to build joint areas into the mesh so that they'll bend reasonably. But still, this app is impressively productive, right out of the gate.

Amusing footnote: these are the first renders I've posted in which all the meshes, apart from the two square-plane stock primitives, are of my own construction. Gettin' dangerous... 8^D*

Lobster Woman vs. Pillbug Man!

2010-09-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

R3 Jam: Insect Characters

"Foolhardy isopod! Your multitudinous yet functionally uniform limbs are NO MATCH for the specialized POWER of my CRUSHER CLAW-- and my CUTTING CLAW!"

After another forum member suggested that "Bug Characters" might be more "grammatically" correct, I seized upon that opening to point out that grammar didn't give a fig which noun we were using-- but that taxonomy did! Thereby expanding the discourse to include the Phylum Arthropoda, and opening up "a whole 'nother can of crustaceans" for my merciless exploitation...

Anomalous Data

2010-09-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

Um, Pasadena, we're seeing some anomalous data in the feed from the rover... Yeah. THAT data. And, along with the image, there appears to be a text message:

"So, is that your Instrument Deployment Device-- or are you just happy to see me?"

This is my second contribution for the R3 Redheads Jam.

Once again, a visual gag, rendered via DAZ Studio. I first posed the girl in mid-air as if she were sitting in a chaise lounge, holding a drink, and amusedly regarding something off to her right. Naturally, I then proceeded to BUILD a chaise lounge, and a drink, and a bangle, and so on... and finally stumbled upon a suitable "something" in the Google 3D Warehouse, courtesy of Alvaro. The weird skydome texture is from an old landsat photo snagged offa the internet years ago; not sure where that was originally from. Hair by Kozaburo again. One of these days I should learn how to use Omnifreaker's shaders to speed up rendering on more modern (read: complex) hair props, to where my aged PC can handle them; but, for now, the simpler stuff still works well.

And now, in an attempt to maintain this blog's R rating, some gratuitous nudity:

This image used a more sophisticated lighting rig, to get the shadows Down There to work properly. Also, a fairly aggressive wide-angle lens, for artistical distortion effects. Ooooohhh...! 8^j*

Here's a closeup of the actor's "amusedly regarding" expression (from an earlier render):

And finally, while I had the location available (so to speak), I couldn't pass up one touristy scenic snapshot. Plus, after manhandling DAZ's Millennium Environment terrain into the scene, I needed to showcase that work a bit.

I'm also rather pleased with how my modest little lighting rig helps harmonize the colors of the image here. Not bad for three fill lights and one shadow caster.

Sylvia (Detail)

2010-08-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

R3 Jam: Redheads

Sylvia: Process Notes

2010-08-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Being an old monochrome pen-&-ink and graphite type, I have a pronounced tendency to fall into full tonal black and white renderings, unreasonably early in my drawing process.

However, when the topic is REDheads, this'll need a little more work.
All right then, let's drop in some more-or-less flat base colors . . .

. . . and use the old Multiply mode trick with the BW layer:

Uhm, eeuuuw! Well, that's gone a bit necro, hasn't it?
[Side Note-- This is one of my pet peeves with the default settings on consumer-grade 3d rendering gear: all the shading being added via deadening grays. On flesh tones, no less. What could they possibly be thinking?]

So, in years past, I used to use Image->Adjust->Curves with a nice preset I saved, to convert my grayscale layer to sepia. Which at least got the fleshtones to behave. But, it made touchup edits awkward, the layer no longer being in simple gray. And other items on that layer didn't necessarily need to be shaded in skintone sepia either.

Well, on an as-yet-unreleased project, I stumbled upon a sort of backwards use of the Overlay mode. Traditionally, you use it on a grayscale-patterned layer, to apply texture to a color layer below. But you can also use it to apply color tones to grayscale. So, here's Sylvia's overlay layer . . .

. . . and its effect on the BW layer:

Used a traditional orange-brown sepia on the props, and a magenta range for her skin shading. Neutral on the sclera and blue for the irises. And yet-- I can continue to edit my still-monochrome BW layer, while immediately seeing the final effect on the color image! Sweet!

Finally, flatten all the layers together, et voilà!

Pirates!

2010-05-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

R3 Jam: Pirates!

Enough to get the idea across, anyway. The rest of my week is booked solid; I wanted to get in on the first wave of this jam; and, as you can see, this design would allow for an indeterminate timespan of fidgeting with details. Hence the sketchy b&w sandwich with scrumptious gradient filling. 8^D*

Gnabbist
-- calling for a ration of grog all around for the ARRR3 Army

That's Some Giant Glowstick

2010-05-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

And another render. This one was triggered by a brief thread in Chup's Poser Art Blog touching upon a technical lighting problem. Hey, an art-tech research question? How was I supposed to resist that? 8^D* So, about a week later... (!)

I'm not sure how useful this would be to Chup, unfortunately, as this is (again) a DAZ Studio render, and I don't know if Poser has equivalent weird lighting gadgets. But anyway-- this was rendered using omnifreaker's UberAreaLight and UberEnvironment2. The former, to provide a tube-shaped light source, and the latter, some general ambient lighting. I'm not sure if it's something I did wrong, or if it's a feature-- but having an UberAreaLight in the scene seems to disable shadowcasting on distant lights (i.e., a light source that emits parallel rays, like sunlight.) Specifically, if I try to toggle on their shadowcasting, they go out entirely! But I figured the same author's ambient lighting (and more) gadget would probably be compatible-- and it was. =Whew!=

I also added a couple of point-source lights, parented to the giant glowstick, to light up the inside of her hands and the ground surface near the tip. For whatever reason, the area light seems to illuminate only past some minimum distance, and I couldn't puzzle out a setting that affected that behavior.

Victoria 4.2 is still from DAZ3D, of course, and the other visible objects (apart from the UberAreaLight giant glowstick) are my usual motley crew of Gnabbist-built geometrics. Including that odd helmet-like thing on her head.

Gnabbist
-- "That's some bad hat, Harry."

Blaze

2010-05-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

A foray into a new medium. I've been immersed in the learning curves for DAZ Studio and Blender for a while (and, to some extent, SketchUp, although I got addicted to that years ago)-- so, when an art jam over on the R3 board sparked an interesting idea, it ended up falling into that workflow.

It's in keeping with my personal tradition of pretty much ignoring the character, and instead indulging in hokey wordplay. Which explains why there's a blaze here, and a tidge of modesty...

Traditional 3D Renderer's Acknowledgments:
- Kozaburo built the "Messy" hair (and the "Allback" hair, which I pressed into service as a bun.)
- Adam Thwaites provided the unworn bra and the fire texture. (From the incredible wealth of freebies at his most-digital-creations.com site.)
- The Victoria 4.2 figure, what little she IS wearing, and the rendering application are from DAZ3D.
- Blender and UVMapper allowed me to convert my Sketchup models (a couple of geodesics, and the little miscellaneous scenery-filler standup that's carrying the fire) into a format that DAZ Studio could import.

All of the above being (astonishingly) free for the downloading...! A boon for impecunious artists-- provided, of course, that you can afford the massive timesuck of learning this stuff.

Educational Value: Pretty much the lighting.

The fill lighting comes from three "distant" lights, arranged at "random" angles to each other, to avoid having two soft shadow lines combining and painting a bold stripe across the model's skin. Or, to quote Dr. Spengler: "Don't cross the streams. It would be bad."

The firelight is simulated by three point-source lights of varying hues sprinkled into the vicinity of the fire prop. Which, like the sky dome, is completely lit by its own ambient light-- everything else is zeroed out. Including shadows, cuz it looks silly when your fire casts a shadow. 8^j*

One moderate spotlight provides the overall key light, revealing contours and casting shadows.

Gnabbist

Ariel, yes. Princess, not so much.

2006-03-01T14:50:00.000-08:00

Once again, I sidestep a character jam at the R3 Forum, reinterpreting it as a theme jam...

Remedial Drawing 602

2006-02-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

Yet another start (of many, over the years) at "grinding the rust off" the skillset...

Edge

2004-08-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

A quick image for the launch of one of Hentaikid's experimental sites. Started from somewhat of a gesture drawing-- the locked-elbow arm, the curve of the spine, & the slight kick outward of the near leg...

Line art version here:

Initializing...

2004-08-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

Let's see what this thing can do...

Warbird

2004-08-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

From an early "This Week" art jam; topic, "Warbird." To view my modest contribution in context, see Page 2.

Renewable

2003-09-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

Tickle

2003-09-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

For the September 2003 Theme Jam in the EAW – the theme being a marvellously open-ended choice of: "Green."

To start off, a (somewhat predictable) quickie pic featuring two of my existing characters, from gn_rgb01.jpg (April of 2000) and gn0206_jade.jpg (June of 2002.)

Drift

2002-10-30T14:09:00.000-08:00

A juxtaposition of textures. Sort of "Pastel meets Semi-Translucent Modern Sculpture meets Aquarium Backdrop."

Float

2002-07-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

Break out the Melamine, set it on the Formica countertop, and fire up the retros!

Jade

2002-06-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

For the June 2002 issue of the DMAA eZine, an exercise in color and translucency.

Prone

2002-03-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

My pic for the March 2002 issue of the DMAA eZine.

An image which begs the question, "Can Gnabbist draw a straight line?"

Which in turn begs the question, "Why would I want to?"

Copper

2001-01-10T01:10:00.000-08:00

My first contribution to the DMAA's eZine.

gn001214.jpg

2000-12-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

For an informal mini-jam that uglyart started.

gn001116.jpg

2000-11-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

A little expressionistic/experimental piece.

Towel Boy

2000-10-13T10:00:00.001-07:00

Poolside

2000-10-11T18:56:00.002-07:00

Just having some fun with glossy surfaces-- and saturated colour, of course. I haven't quite zeroed in on her appearance yet, but this is supposed to be the blue dancer again (Kiara) from my Café Alien pic of this spring.

Facial Foreshortening from an Odd Angle

2000-10-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

As usual, there's never a reference photo around when I need one, so here's an old constructionist trick. The basic idea is to draw an "easier" view, in order to transfer dimensions to a more difficult foreshortened view.

I've sketched out a semi-plausible, full front-view face, with a few extra "bizarro world" and "transparent woman" lines. I'm using those to help keep track of what the eyes and their bony orbits are doing.

Then I run a few horizontal lines over to a rough profile, and start molding it to fit the dimensions transferred. Hmm. Looks like I've probably got the eyebrow ridge a tad "robust" in this quick example-- but I still think a good deal of the orbit/socket should be showing behind and around the bulge of the closed eyelid.

Anyway, I hope this little exercise has some utility for folks.

Summer's End

2000-09-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

My humble tribute to Juicyfruit's clean, linear style.

Keycap Removal

2000-09-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

Juicyfruit wrote:
>
> . . . it looks like I can't get the key out
> without breaking something. Do you think I should try it anyway?

Here's a rough sketch of my method for pulling a keycap from the lower tier. The spacebar serves as a fulcrum. The "trick" is to pull the key fairly straight up; that's why I use both hands, my left hand serving to counter the torque being applied by the screwdriver in my right hand. Helps to have strong fingernails.

Every keyboard I've attempted to disassemble has been designed to come apart like this, without breaking. Work slowly, gently, but firmly. Heck, you can't make it much worse-- and the keyboard has to be either fixed or replaced. Good luck; take your time.

Avatar for Grace

2000-05-23T11:40:00.002-07:00

Dancers at the Café Alien

2000-04-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

Emerald:
Aliza:
Kiara:

Oooh [giggle]-- Me, Doctor?
Now there's a shock...
Yah, who'da thunk it?

A humble tribute pic, for one of our number who often employs kicky color schemes. I do appreciate getting to view those "women of intense color." (Hmm, no wonder this project dragged on.) So once more (and not often enough)-- thanks neutron!

Now to hope that the extrapolated rear view of the avatar's head is recognizable. Oh, and to another of our rainbow warriors: the 8-ball's there, honest-- it's just hidden behind the blue dancer from this angle. I'll show you the layers sometime. 8^b*

Gnabbist

Two Dancers

2000-04-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'm about to get interrupted again-- so here's a little work-in-progress sample to let folks know I'm still alive. 8^b*

These are a couple of supporting characters from an upcoming color pic. I'm finding that working up a fairly finished grayscale "underpainting" is a big help to me in the coloring stage. I have much more experience working in monochrome-- so it makes it easier for me to work out the values, composition, etc. What the heck, an "underpainting plus glazes" approach worked well for classically-trained oil painters for centuries, right?

The initial stage is fairly pencilish, as in the Aliza figure here; I gradually develop it into a monochrome "value painting," as in the more fully-rendered Kiara figure. Color layers for tone are applied "below" the value painting (which I'll occasionally tint to sepia for skintones), and highlights are applied above it.

Gnabbist

Cute AND Ratlike?

2000-03-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

After RT's Jenki Ratkin character. It's an interesting challenge, trying to combine "cute" and "ratlike" characteristics... 8^b*

GIF versus JPEG

2000-03-04T17:25:00.000-08:00

jestr wrote:
> Would you recommend .gif over .jpg?
> I thought .gif was mainly for animated bits.

For pictures with large solid-color areas and a modest palette, yes, I would strongly recommend GIF over JPEG format. For pictures with gradual-toned ("gradient") areas and thousands or millions of colors (like a photograph or a painting), I'd recommend JPEG format. (For a posting copy only-- you should always save the original in your paint program's native format. More on why in a bit.) I use each format when each is called for-- see my ~~gallery site~~ blog for examples of both.

Using the picture you posted as an example: The original BMP was 393,190 bytes; your JPEG was practically as big at 386,709 bytes; and a copy saved as a GIF was 70,080 bytes. (!) That is significant, since your entire audience is not on high-speed connections. The GIF also perfectly replicates every pixel in your original BMP, while the JPEG has changed and recolored some (zoom in and compare) as part of its compression method. That is to say, JPEG is a "lossy" algorithm, which is why you NEVER use it for a master copy-- ONLY for publishing to the web. Since you used just 102 colors in your original, that fits comfortably within the 256-color palette allowed by GIF.

Side note: PNG is another non-lossy format, but with less restrictive palette limitations-- IIRC, it can encode 24-bit color (16M colors) with an 8-bit transparency channel (for nice semi-transparent shadow effects, etc.)-- but it's not as widely supported (yet) as GIF and JPEG.

It was immediately obvious the first time I saw this picture that it belonged in GIF format-- this is exactly the kind of image that GIF was designed for. And a photomanip or painting or solid-modeling computer rendering just as obviously calls for JPEG. If an image is kinda in the middle regarding "solid vs. gradient" color areas, try saving both GIF and JPEG copies, and see which is smaller and/or looks better.

Hope this helps.

Gnabbist

Sage

2000-03-02T17:42:00.000-08:00

With all the mechanical failures (real and virtual) around here so far this year, it stands to reason that my Wacom would start acting weird. It was "skipping"-- in the middle of a stroke, its data stream would contain bursts of near-zero pressure readings. Not very pleasant for drawing.

Pulled and plugged its connections a few times, to try to ensure good electrical contact, and loaded a more recent driver. It seems to be behaving properly now-- here's what developed out of my test scribble in Photoshop. A bit "artsy," but what the hey.

I'm getting REAL tired of perpetually having new breakages to fix...

Gnabbist

Bodécious Babe

2000-01-28T00:40:00.000-08:00

An homage to the general proportions, at least, of Vaughn Bodé's curvaceous little bundles of femininity.

One technical curiosity: this was drawn using an old SummaSketch tablet-- decidedly not a pressure-sensitive tablet! The variations in line density were instead built up by using a Photoshop brush at partial opacity.

Millennium Minus One

2000-01-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

"A disgruntled personification travels back in time to protest the theft of her thunder-- while the culprit, oblivious, parties on."

Man, these color jobs take up a lot of room. I tried backing off the JPEG quality, but this was as low as I felt comfortable posting.

Historical Curiosity Note: This is a modification of a cartoon I did under my everyday identity, for the cover of a club newsletter. Essentially, I replaced two New Year's Babies with New Year's Babes. That's traditional imagery, right? 8^b*

Gnabbist

Stalking

2000-01-04T22:55:00.001-08:00

"Be vewy, vewy quiet: I'm hunting a wascal..."

Kneeling

2000-01-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

A casual invented pose-- a bit abstracted/expressionistic/cartoonish.

Levitation Subject

1999-12-31T12:43:00.000-08:00

I guess everyone's taking it easy on the internet today... 8^b*

Happy Y2K, everyone!

Gnabbist

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

1999-12-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

"Yes, Ebenezer, YES! Do continue... I'm about to... I believe I shall... Any moment now... It's quite imminent, I'm nearly certain..."

Stamina, however, was a cause for concern.

L & L for Imaginos - In Color!

1999-11-24T18:23:00.000-08:00

The line work is mostly undisturbed from the grayscale original. The biggest revision (read: "nuisance") was smudging out edge jaggies: somehow, during the resampling down to display size, the layers interacted to create horrible fringes. [Editor's Note: I eventually discovered that flattening the image first makes resampling go much more, uh, smoothly.] I also removed the old pencilled cast shadows, in favor of a separate airbrushed layer.

While colorizing this image, I discovered a nifty timesaver for skin tone shading. I have a lot more experience working in black and white and grayscale, so it didn't take me long to smooth out my initial pencil cross-hatching into gray modeling. But grays look dead and horrible overlaid on a skin tone base. Using Photoshop's "Image -> Adjust -> Curves", I remapped the grayscale values to a variable-hue gradient, running from dark red through sepia to pale greenish beige tones to white. Much nicer overlay for the two base tones I used here. Also very quick-- and repeatable.

The gradient from green "lawn" to blue "night" added some depth, but it needed more cues. So I loaded a temporary image with Gaussian noise, applied a motion blur, and "tilted" it back with a perspective transform. Had to make it real big, to have enough height left after tilting.

Gnabbist

The Redoubtable Geomette

1999-11-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a sketch I did while trying to figure out what the heck Poser was doing to the hips in neutron's "Pumpkin Lady." So, using some Hogarth constructive anatomy tech, I applied the yaw, pitch, and roll <G> that neutron so patiently described in his response to my questions. Keeping the upper torso oriented toward the viewer, I went ahead and filled in the rest of the figure.

Sorry about the diminutive image dimensions, but this is the scale I work in for quick, direct-to-photoshop sketches. Coloring was a very simple imitation-marker rendering on a layer behind the imitation-pencil layer.

Gnabbist

Beware the Redoubtable Geomette:
she's got a Magenta Triangle around her head,
and a Transparent Hollow Sphere--
and She's Not Afraid To Use Them!!!
(Now, if we could only figure out how to use them...)

Miss Terki

1999-11-05T23:11:00.000-08:00

"So-- what exactly did you say you were going to do to the turkey?"

Several verbs were popular answers to Miss Terki's query...

1999 Halloween Jam

1999-10-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Here's my contribution to this year's Halloween Art Jam.

Naturally, lack of time (and my faulty memory) ensured that I left out some of our artists' alter-egos and companion characters. Here are the ones who did overcome those obstacles, listed in (more or less) left-to-right order:

Brimstone ... the critic, borne by two of his amazonian lovelies ... FNmagic ... Random, accompanied by his character Heratic ... a "cleverly" disguised spambot ... WolfPup, with his character Mistress Cyn ... my Gnabbist avatar (who has assumed a mesomorphic shape for this party) ... JNG's "Nathan" alter-ego (about to savor his coffee) ... some guy in the window, wearing a blank false face and a robe made of some high-tech bi-color fabric (Note: this is not a sanctioned avatar) ... the construction worker from my site ... Degem (on the railing), thinking about preparing some pumpkin pie ... itieu, (at the window), behind an 8-ball ... Ryoko, accompanying Ryoko's Toy ... JamNut

Leaving A Light On

1999-10-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

A rough initial sketch that I didn't develop further.
To absent friends...

Drawing with an Art Tablet

1999-10-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Bic wrote:

Hey guys,

How the hell do you get used to drawing on this thing? I figured since my scanner was down, I should start learning how to draw with an art tablet, but it's driving me nuts!!!

Any tips or suggestions?

Do you find it easier to draw straight on the screen, or 'trace' a pencil sketch? I know I'm missing obvious questions but it's beddy bye time....

I include a sample of my measly sketches, (at the moment I feel better drawing with a ball-point pen!) These were done from scratch.

Any thrown bones would be gladly gobbled up...

Actually, your sketches are quite reasonable for first attempts with the new tool.

Is it the "disconnection" feeling of having to look up here at the screen while your hand is down at the desktop level doing the drawing? (I've been drawing via digitizer tablets for over fifteen years now, so I'm not sure I remember what felt weird about it when I started.) That feeling passes with practice.

I think it gets tangled up with the traditional method of looking up at a subject, then looking down at the sketchpad to draw. With a tablet, you have to force yourself NOT to keep looking down at your hand, since all the visual feedback is on the screen-- there's nothing to see down at the tablet. (Which answers the question of whether I draw directly on-screen!) Eventually your brain will get used to the difference, and not give you that conflicted feeling.

For lower-stakes practice, you might try some tracing exercises, then try drawing alongside a reference. Also just sketch simple blocks and cylinders and such. The idea is to do drawings that don't matter, just for the sake of training the new hand-eye coordination skills. The old "two faces to a vase" exercise is another good frivolous game. (Draw one grotesque profile down one side of the page, then mirror it to make a "vase" silhouette.)

Another tip-like thought: I find that my tablet usually ends up rotated a little counter-clockwise (maybe five degrees) relative to the screen. More comfortable for a right-hander that way.

What sketch tools are you used to? For a simulated pencil, I use a skinny Photoshop paintbrush, with the stylus pressure set to vary opacity. Lets me build up light, pencil-like lines.

For a simulated porous-tip marker, I use a medium-sized pencil, with pressure set to vary size. Very Flair™-like.

A bonus is using the X shortcut key to switch between a black and a white pencil.

I've attached a small sample sketch demonstrating these tools, and the goofy vase exercise. (Any light-hearted drawing game will do for practice.)

BTW, I strongly disagree with characterizing this as "off-topic"! Artist-to-artist help is one of the most on-topic things we do here, in my arrogant opinion. Does wonders for my morale, anyway. 8^D*

Gnabbist
-- wondering about scanning in a sketch done in ball-point pen...

Bubblegum

1999-09-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

In a thread a couple of weeks ago that touched on the advantages of not needing to achieve a portrait-level resemblance in some pictures, Bigboote offered a comment something along the lines of, "as long as they don't ask what that thing is attached to the shoulders, you're all right." This, along with my avatar's then-recent debut, reminded me of an old joke.

My thanks to Ryoko and her devoted factotum for graciously agreeing to make guest appearances...!

Gnabbist

Alter-Ego, Avatar, & Stand-In

1999-09-10T01:10:00.000-07:00

Flowerpot & Landscape

1999-09-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

bigboote wrote:
>
> MAC wrote:
> > I guess my ISP came through after all. =)
> > Well I'll get right down to it.
> > Can anyone tell me what artists usually post here?
>
> Usually drawings of flowerpots, landscapes. Stuff like that.
>
> Yes, Yes! I know what he meant too.
>
> Welcome.
>

Yeah, and it's day in, day out, always the same-- I for one am heartily tired of it. See attachment.

Gnabbist

P.S.: Yes, it's entirely too far to go for a visual joke. But it was fun. Besides, Karl gets a giant or two, and the Coyote (if I'm remembering correctly) gets a somewhat surreal pic. Melting watches sold separately.

WolfPup takes a Bite out of Spam!

1999-08-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Back when WolfPup was first designing his alter ego, he graciously invited us pen-&-ink types to have a try at rendering the big guy. Here's one result.

Hope you don't mind, 'Pup, but Mistress Cyn, uh, "suggested" that she should accompany her favorite lycanthrope. And I sure wasn't about to try to tell her no! 8^D*

Technical notes: As usual, it's direct-to-digital, via cheapo PC, Wacom tablet, and Photoshop.

I discovered yet another old friend hiding in the Photoshop toolset, under an assumed name: a flexible-tip porous-tip pen. Adobe claims it's a pencil, a few pixels wide, with the pressure sensitivity set to vary size. But I know better-- it behaves like the Flair™ pens of my childhood! (When the whole tip was fiber, before Gillette put those stupid white plastic collars on them in the late 70s/early 80s.)

It was great fun inking in the happy couple, whom I had originally drawn with a virtual pencil (narrow Photoshop paintbrush, pressure varying the opacity.) The spambot was virtual fiber-tip pen throughout-- wheeee! This is the truest to my pen-&-ink style I've yet gotten out of Photoshop-- indistinguishable, in fact, from a scan of one of my fiber-tip pen drawings. Uncanny...

Actually, it feels a bit livelier-- more of a sketch-like energy-- thanks to the freeing effect of digital erasers. Bad line? So what? Undo, or use a perfect erase! No clumsy white-out fumbling and glopping.

I decided on a flat area color scheme, for the full cartoony effect. This led to GIF outperforming JPEG, for once. JPEG just gets confused by all that solid color stuff-- it showed hideous artifacts, even with the quality cranked up to where the JPEG's file size exceeded the GIF's.

Still, I used up somewhat more bandwidth than I usually do-- but I'm hopeful that it was worth it. 8^j*

Gnabbist

Welcome Back, Imaginos!

1999-08-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, Imaginos! Before your move, you asked about the possibility of a Lara or a Leeloo picture. Well, since you didn't specify an exclusive or (heh heh)-- here are both of them, just after a shipping crate has broken open.

gnll4i00.jpg - Sketch, grayscale; L & L & whatever that thing is. In response to an Imaginos request. (Albeit a delayed response...)

My usual 2-pixel-paintbrush "pencil" sketch, although I did resort to using separate layers for the ladies. I expect I'll color this, after a bit more cleanup. Still, I couldn't resist posting the sketch version-- before I crush the life out of it reworking it, very likely... (Kidding, but not quite kidding.)

Gee, I could have sworn I ordered an andro-erotic life form, not a gyno-erotic one...

Gnabbist

Step 5 - Start the Fun!

1999-08-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

[ Previous | Next ]

Add a new color layer behind the line art.

Then...
	*Save your new .PSD file!*

And start coloring! Have fun!

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Step 4 - Clean Up

1999-08-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

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Switch to the Channels palette and delete the temporary channel mask you made in Step 1.

Having this channel mask in your file will cause Photoshop to restrict your choices of format later, when you're converting it into a postable .JPG or .GIF file. It won't even allow you a .JPG choice, and it'll use the channel mask to set transparency bits on your .GIF! (Usually hideously.) Merely flattening the layers won't remove it. (It's not a layer, it's a channel.)

This is the sort of thing that will drive you crazy at a quarter past unconscious in the morning, until you get used to using extra channels.

Switch back to the Layers palette. Make sure the Background layer is the active layer.

Next, we'll empty out the background layer, since the info's in your line art layer now.

From under Photoshop's main Edit pulldown menu, choose Fill... Use whatever color you like, at 100% opacity.

[ Previous | Next ]

Step 3 - Copy the Line Art

1999-08-18T18:03:00.000-07:00

[ Previous | Next ]
In the Layers palette, make sure "New Line Art" is the active layer. I'm also going to hide the Background temporarily, by clicking off the little eye icon to the left of its name. Under Photoshop's main Select pulldown menu, choose Load Selection...

We want to load from the channel we made, "Line Art Channel mask." Click the OK button.

Photoshop's famous marching ants appear.

Make sure you're painting with the color you want your new linework to be. Here, I'm using black. From under the Edit pulldown menu, choose Fill...

Use the Foreground Color, at 100% opacity.

Under the Select pulldown menu, choose None, to dismiss the ants.

She's back!

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Step 2 - Add a Transparent Layer

1999-08-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

[ Previous | Next ]

Make a new layer in the picture, using the Layers palette menu's New Layer... option.

I'm calling the new layer "New Line Art." (The other default values are fine.) Click the OK button.

By the way, don't be concerned by that 'Opacity 100%' setting-- that only applies to the new pixels we'll add later.

Right now, the layer is filled with transparent pixels, which is most of what we want. Think of it as being like the "cel" plastic that an animator uses. (The name comes from "celluloid.")

In the next step, we'll copy the line drawing onto this "cel."

[ Previous | Next ]

Step 1 - Make a Temporary Channel Mask

1999-08-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

[ Previous | Next ]

We're starting with a simple line art image, which only has the one "Background" layer.

In the Layers palette, make sure the Background layer is selected. (Hey, it doesn't have much choice!) If you don't have a Layers palette, use Photoshop's Window pulldown menu, and click next to Show Layers.

Switch from the Layers palette to the Channels palette. I'm usually working in RGB mode by now, so all three channels-- Red, Green, and Blue-- show as selected. Select just one channel-- I'll click on Red here.

I did that so I could use the Channel palette menu's Duplicate Channel... option. (Which won't work with all the RGB channels selected.)

Check the Invert box, and give the new channel a name; I used "Line Art Channel mask." (Original, huh?) Click the OK button.

The result looks like a photographic negative of the original linework.

Click on the RGB (master) channel, to put the view back to normal, and switch back to the Layers palette.

[ Previous | Next ]

Line Art on a Transparency

1999-08-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Problem:
Okay, so we've obtained a line drawing-- pencil, pen-&-ink, or (as in this example) something in between. It's a single-layer picture: all of the information is right in the "background" layer, as Photoshop calls it. If I were to start painting directly onto it, even with a semi-transparent tool like the airbrush, eventually I'd cover it up. Indeed, almost immediately, the paler grayscale values in her hair, shadowlines, etc., start to disappear.

And there she goes, fading away under a green mist... What to do?

One Solution:
In Photoshop, we can copy the line art onto a mostly transparent layer. That way, we can add the color behind the line art layer, so we can't cover it up accidentally.

In other words, instead of opaque black, opaque gray, and opaque white pixels, we'll end up with opaque black pixels, semi-transparent gray pixels, and completely transparent pixels-- what I refer to as "line art on a mostly transparent layer."

The following is a brief synopsis of the method I use. If you're familiar with Photoshop jargon, you can just print out this list and be done with this tutorial. Or, if you prefer, follow along as I demonstrate each step.

Step 0 - Get your Line Art
Get some line art into a plain old flat, single-layer, background-only Photoshop image.
Step 1 - Make a Temporary Channel Mask of your Line Art
Switch to the Channels palette, pick one channel, and Duplicate it, with the Invert box checked. Display the ordinary channel(s) again (either click on RGB, or click on Black, if your image is still grayscale.) Switch back to the Layers palette.
Step 2 - Add a Transparent Layer
From the Layers palette, add a new layer. Make sure that it's the currently active layer.
Step 3 - Copy the Line Art in
Under the Select pulldown menu, choose Load Selection... Load from the temporary channel mask you made in Step 1. Click the OK button. Photoshop's marching ants appear. Make sure you're painting with black. From under the Edit pulldown menu, choose Fill... Use the Foreground Color, at 100% opacity. Under the Select pulldown menu, select None.
Step 4 - Clean Up
Switch to the Channels palette and delete the temporary channel mask you made in Step 1. Switch back to the Layers palette. Empty out the background layer, since the info's in your line art layer now.
Step 5 - Start the Fun!
Add a new color layer behind the line art, save your new .PSD file, and start coloring!

[ Previous | Next ]

Tutsie

1999-08-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

For my "Line Art on a Transparency" tutorial.

Gee, folks, I apologize for the relatively *small* size of these files lately-- I think I've been doing images for the web too long...! 8^j*

This is even at full size, just as I drew it, directly into Photoshop. One layer-- now *that's* an odd thing to do for a "layers" tutorial, isn't it? Of course, the point was to show how to take a piece of B&W line art and apply it to a mostly transparent layer, to allow you to color behind it. I used a 2-pixel paintbrush, with the pressure sensitivity set to vary opacity, as a waxy-colored-pencil surrogate. Since I was painting on just the one layer, I used the "x" keyboard shortcut to swap colors between black and white, to have an eraser always handy.

I tried the "big eyes" effect here-- although that always gets my mind's eye picturing the cranial anatomy of small nocturnal primates! Looks like the net effect was a standard toon elf. If I were to point up her ears a bit, she could probably survive the trip over to our sister group, ABPEC.mythical-creatures.

I also see a vague celebrity resemblence, although an "elfinized" one. I'd be curious to hear if anyone sees it, or other ones I haven't thought of. Speculations?

I'm working on a colorized version, to act as a "final result" illustration for the new tutorial. If any of our colorists feel like taking a try, please do. Again, I apologize for the diminutive full size of this image. But hey, if you use my "temporary channel mask" tip to get the gray pixels properly semi-transparent, no problem, right? 8^D*

Seriously, using Image Size with 'Nearest Neighbor' mode would let you double or triple it for more elbow room, without introducing artifacts when you resize it back down with 'Bilinear' or 'Bicubic' mode.

Gnabbist

Construction Worker

1999-08-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

I finally built something a little more interesting for my archive site's entry page...

Annoyed by baggy overalls? Cutoff T not translucent enough? No problem!

Layers are our friends. Learn them; use them. 8^D*

Gnabbist

Rajina (with Tutorial Commentary)

1999-08-03T00:47:00.001-07:00

Here's my second "student pic" for our local airbrushing academy. (Hey, getting a bunch of artists together to swap ideas is a time-honored teaching technique.)

Being a beginner at this airbrushing, I hit a few surprises along the way. I think they might be helpful to other beginners, so I'll note them here before I start taking them for granted.

I started with a solid, flat base color layer for each object, as Bigboote recommends in his tutorial. Also set up a simplified outline drawing layer, a "lights" layer, and a "shadows" layer (for each object.) With only those four layers and a dummy blank background displayed, I selected the dummy background color and inverted the selection, so my subsequent thrashing about would stay inside the lines. 8^D*

I used Bigboote's suggested variation on his Insta-Shade™ trick to initialize the "shadows" layer. Took my cross-hatched sketch (I'm an old pen-&-ink, graphite, and colored-pencil guy) and subtracted my simplified outline drawing from it (copied the outline into a temp channel, used that as a selection on the cross-hatch sketch layer, and 'cut' out the stuff under the outline.) Then I Gaussian-blurred the heck out of what was left. Thanks for the warning, Bigboote; it is a lot easier that way.

I kept my "shadows" layer monochromatic for this time around; I know some color theory, but I figured I'd better keep the number of variables simple for myself when just starting out. (Desaturated the layer to grayscale, then used Image - Adjust - Hue/Saturation to colorize it.) Since I used an olive-ish (a bit rich in the green) base skin tone, I used a dark, saturated red, with transparency of the layer set to 80% or so. That way I got some of the neutralizing effect of a transparent complementary color, so my monochromatic shading wouldn't be entirely lifeless. (Mmmm, color theory-- aglglaglll...)

The "lights" layer was also monochromatic; however, its transparency was set to 100%, so I could have fully opaque highlights where needed. Kind of like gouache on top of watercolor.

Then there was much thrashing about with monochromatic airbrush strokes.

Here's an UNFAIR ADVANTAGE tip: Set the eraser to airbrush mode, with the same 20% pressure setting as your regular airbrush tool. Then paint boldly, knowing you can gently back out any goofs. (Seems to me this feature would be difficult to duplicate with real media.)

I figured out why the blur brush tool has little to no effect on airbrushed layers. Airbrushing uses the layer's transparency channel to do its smooth-transition effects. The blur tool only affects the color info of the layer, not its transparency channel.

However-- here's another UNFAIR ADVANTAGE tip-- the Smudge tool does affect both the color and the transparency of a layer! I "cheated in" quite a few subtle adjustments by smudging my airbrush strokes, instead of erasing and repainting.

I did the modelling using the "shadows" first, then switched to the "lights" layer. Man, just like my first time using a white Conté crayon (pastel pencil) on colored paper! All you have to do is think where the light would fall, and paint it. Too easy.

Once the first pass of rendering was pretty complete, I decided to amuse myself by sticking in a solid black layer, to check out the "Elvis on Velvet" effect. Hilarious. But also useful...

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE tip #3: This is a great way to make sure your lights are at balanced, appropriate levels. I had gotten a little too heavy on the toe highlights, for example; against a black background, they glowed like beacons. A litle gentle dimming with an airbrush eraser, and they receded to their proper place. I couldn't even see that error against the ordinary skin midtones.

Naturally, I immediately checked the "shadows" layer against a white background.

Being, as I've mentioned, an old pen-&-ink guy, I kept my outline layer. I did soften it a bit with transparency. It'd also be interesting to try colorizing it, or a very gentle Gaussian blur, or both.

=WHEW!= Bigboote, I don't think you have an exclusive on rambling... (Don't worry, Imaginos, I'm archiving this note for eventual tutorial use, in case anyone else finds it useful.)

Anyway, I think those were the the nifty tricks I stumbled upon. What an education this group is!

Gnabbist

[Followed a few minutes later by...]

Oh no! An evil sorcerer has transformed the Princess into a golden statue! He then ran off, muttering some gibberish about "Gaussian blurs," "Image - Adjust - Levels," and "Find Edges." There was also a lot of nonsense about hue and saturation, too...

=Ahem.=

Well, since I still had the "lights" and "shadows" layers separate, I decided to try some color variations. Then it became a challenge to see if I could get a metallic effect just through transforms of layer copies-- i.e., no new airbrush strokes. Sadly, there are probably one-step filters available commercially to do this sort of thing. But, what the heck, I did it anyway. Fairly amusing.

It's too late at night here to write this up right now. (Thank your lucky stars: you've just escaped from another rambling diatribe!)

Gnabbist

Vanessa Looks Back

1999-07-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

Vanessa Looks Back - gnvnes1.jpg

Not a nude, but still erotic-- at least to me. 8^D*

A few years ago, I was waiting around for a pair of replacement glasses, enjoying the impressionistic view afforded by myopia and astigmatism, when a young woman strolled by-- in the most incredibly orange and magnificently form-fitting knit dress imaginable. Well, those photons pretty much whacked me upside the visual cortex. Sooner or later, I had to draw her.

With thunderstorms in the area last night, I reverted to using a back-up graphics tablet: cellulose substrate and graphite stylus. (Now if I could just figure out where the dang scrolling controls are!) Anyway, after scanning in the sketch today, I did a quick color test, painting in some solid areas underneath the pencil layer. The Results: "Whoa! This is interesting..."

So, I did a slower color test, and some very minor cleanup of the pencil layer, mostly around the face. I know a lot of folks here enjoy the energy of a still-rough pencil sketch (I sure do)-- so I figured, what the heck, let's post it.

The cropping is due to running off the edges of the paper. If I had been working digitally, I would have just glued more virtual canvas on. In hindsight, I'm glad I couldn't: I rather like the way she divides up the picture plane.

I'll definitely return to this character-- I may even try a more polished version of this image. Purists, don't worry: I use version numbers.

Three more in the to-do queue...

Gnabbist

Artist Delurking - thanks Bigboote

1999-07-28T07:32:00.001-07:00

Happy Red Lectroid - gn_hrl1.jpg

See what happens when you leave a tutorial sitting out where just anybody can read it? 8^D*

Here's a modest thank you (at least I hope it constitutes a thank you) to Bigboote for inspiring this Photoshop user to get up off his background and exploit some dang layers already! Thanks for the pragmatic advice, the beautiful images, and for helping to establish the remarkably welcoming tone of this group. Nice place you folks have here.

Now, to get the commentary ball rolling:

I could've sworn that the girl's face in the original line drawing was a passable likeness. Somehow (perhaps through the magic of my inexperience at full-color rendering) I ended up painting a pleasant-looking Asian girl with a blonde dye job... (?) Nice, but not what was in the blueprints. Oh well, I'll try for better luck (and better photo references) next time.

Yes, the background (chair & purple void) is a bit of a placeholder. But, given my current lack of rendering speed, and a desire to get something posted before the end of the millennium...

Had way too much fun doing Christopher Lloyd impressions while drawing the Happy Red Lectroid figure. I wonder if anybody passing by the studio could fathom the significance of "Eat your HEARTS out, MONKEY BOYS!" Heh heh heh.

Gnabbist

Gnabbist's gn_point.gif

1999-07-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

A first, tentative post to ABPEC.
Slid silently into the waters there leaving nary a ripple. 8^j*