6/8/2006 - This just in. . .
I'm breaking my unintentional Blog fast with a story from my morning routine.
After I wake, pee, and cook a delicious bowl of oatmeal (I've found that this ordering works the best)
I pop the television on CNN to catch up on any late breaking stories I may have missed while
laying in slumber, dreaming of Jenna Elfman and myself caught in a blizzard -
"Body heat, Jenna! Bodyheat is the answer!!".
This morning, as I begin grazing on my oats, I sat and watched the
TV screen fade to life as I heard these. . .poignant. . .words:
"We begin by following up on our breaking news story. . .Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
has been killed. . .again, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead. . .and we'll be talking about
what kind of impact that has on America. . .BUT FIRST. . .we'd like to turn our attention
to the buzz in Hollywood, as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie celebrate the birth of their baby. . ."
They broke into the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi story to talk about Bradgelina's baby!
The BREAKING story wasn't that hours before, Iraq's most notorious insurgent
had been killed - it was that DAYS before, two American Actors had successfully mated!
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
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5/4/2006 - My, what a bright light you have!
Sorry to put so much time in between posts. I was going to post earlier this week but the
illegal immigrants I pay to move my pencil around while I hold it were a no show and I
eventually had to let them go. All 43 of them. It's a pity - they did some really nice work.
Instead, here's something I managed by myself. A late night diversion, using the same technique
illustrated in the tutorial below. (The kids call them "tutes"!)
It's based on a photo from Neneuche's Blog - though I had some conflicting likeness issues.
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4/25/2006 - Two posts of me in a row!? Frickin' pretentious!
For whatever reason, I've been receiving quite a few inquiries on how I create drawings in Adobe Illustrator with my Wacom.
I've always claimed there was no real secret to it - as soon as I got my Tablet, I opened up Illustrator and just started drawing. I've worked with Illustrator for years so there was no awkwardness. It was like drawing on paper.
Still, there's something a little too 'slick' about drawing in Illustrator. Sometimes it works and sometimes the end result doesn't quite feel right to me.
Here's a very general tutorial on how I might go about creating a simple illustration. I found a picture of this ugly dude on MySpace to use as a reference.
With the photo placed, I go to my Brushes window, select New Brush, and create a new Calligraphic Brush.
In the following window I've chosen a 2pt brush with 2pt variation. This means that the maximum diameter of my brush (pressing hard on the Tablet) will be 2 pts wide, and (by varying my pressure on the tablet) my line will fluctuate within the entire 2 pt diameter. Feel free to play with these settings. Take them to extremes and see how they change.
Then I bring up the Brush Tool preferences by double clicking the Brush Tool. I'll be honest - I don't change these very much. They will affect how 'faithful' the brush is to your movements. But I find Illustrator's default settings are pretty decent for me. Again - play with them and figure out what they do for you.
Now I'm ready to start mangling virtual paper! By utilizing the pressure sensitivity of the Tablet I can create a wide array of thins and thicks with that one brush. . .
. . .but often I will create a 1pt brush for small details, and a 3 or 4pt brush for big areas. On to the mangling!
Here I did a quick sketch using the photo for reference. (As opposed to using a ham sandwich for reference)
Then I change that quick sketch to a light color, usually blue. Something non-distracting. Sometimes I'll use Magenta and Cyan for different areas.
I select all of my artwork, go to Object, Lock, and Selection. This locks everything in place so I can draw on top of it without accidentally selecting something.
Now. . .well, now I start drawing. Sometimes I remain faithful, sometimes I come up with a better idea. As far as how I go about laying down the lines - you'll have to figure that out yourself. There are people out there MUCH better at inking than I am. Seek them out and study them. All I can say is I find it easier (digitally and traditionally) to go from thin to thick, light pressure to heavy pressure.
When I'm done, I go to Object, Unlock All. This unlocks my quick sketch so I can delete it, leaving only my finished drawing.
One of the nice things about drawing these lines in Illustrator is you can select them and apply different colors to them incredibly easily. You will find though that you need to send some lines forward or backward to accomodate the colors.
Here's the drawing with some basic colors applied.
That's it for Illustrator. That easy! Here're a couple finishing touches. Open the Illustrator document in Photoshop (you can right-click the file and select "Open With Photoshop")
The illustration will open on it's own layer with no color behind it. Create a layer behind it and start coloring! In this case, I'm still using my Tablet and Photoshop's Paintbrush Tool Kind of like an old animation cell. You know, back when the word "cell" actually stood for something.
And that's it.
Like I said, very basic. People who use Illustrator will find a lot of this boring. People who don't use Illustrator will hopefully find some of this helpful. Let me know if I missed anything!
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4/10/2006 - I am teh hairy hottie
My sexy goatee is back.
Also - karma is having it's way with me for making fun of Jude Law. I think I'm quickly developing his hairline.
I wish I had more to show you, but I've been very uninspired to draw lately. That's a bad sign, don't you think? Since I'd like to draw for a living? I'm-a try and do some sketching after work - two lovely ladies have inspired me this morning: Marlo Meekins and Kristin Bobannaliptinsteinovichanini (I have no idea what Kristin's last name is)
Go forth and oggle their blogs!
*tee hee*
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4/5/2006 - When April showers. . .she never closes the curtain. . .
I'm blaming my lack of Blog updates on the recent rains here in Los Angeles. It's difficult to be creative when you're soggy.
Which explains this post!
Ever wonder what artists do when they need to pay bills but there is no one to hire them to be creative?
They learn vector programs and create very exciting graphics like this wheel!
The client says things like, "We want it to look as photographic as possible but we don't want to take a photograph of it because that's work. And besides, it's easier to just pay you. And besides, there a good chance we'll print this on the side of Star Jones."
This was all vector - all shapes (no gradients) built in Illustrator with the pen tool. Stuff like this is very easy once you get the hang of bezier curves. It's just very. ..very. .tedious. I encourage people to not be afraid of Adobe Illustrator. It's just like Photoshop - but different. And as everyone knows, a truly vector-based illustration is resolution independent and can be enlarged with no loss in quality, allowing it to be imprinted on very large surfaces.
(PS: Don't tell them about Star Jones - they'll be very disappointed!)
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3/22/2006 - Another bored Wacom Diddle from work
At my 9 to 5 - if I grow tired of typesetting a 36 page thesis on frog poop or groan at the prospect of laying out some schmuck's letterhead previously designed in Microsoft Paint - I just grab my trusty Wacom and go internettin' for a few minutes.
Here's a sketch from some REALLY WEIRD photo I found on the web! (Who puts pictures of themselves looking like this online???) ;)
I may revisit this one and draw it up proper with color. I like it. It's silly.
Corbett
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3/21/2006 - In the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki blog. . .
Here's a page from a story I did from Zowie! Tales of Tiki Terror! A few people had recently asked me how I use the computer to color my stuff. These images show the basic steps I usually take.
1)The linework drawn directly into Illustrator using the Wacom. After roughing out thumbnails by hand, I'll do my roughs in Illustrator too, then change them to a light blue, lock them, and "ink" on top.
2)Then, I import into Photoshop, where I add color onto a layer underneath the line work.
3) Shows what the line work and color look like together. It's very much like I imagine an animation cell going together. My photoshop file could very well have several layers involving backgrounds, overlays, effects and the like. Basically, if I feel I'd benefit from the ability to move it independently of the rest - it gets it's own layer.
  
This is from a couple years ago and was the first time I'd attempted this method in a lengthy format (14 pages). It was a real learning process and I never did get to consistently where I wanted it. But it was a start. Many of the details, related to drawing AND color, I'd handle differently today. But the basic approach would be the same.
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About Me
Doodles, Sketches, and general goofing about.
All images are ©copyright Corbett Vanoni unless otherwise stated. Do not steal from me or I'll break your knees. Twice.
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