Soaked

Bicycle

Another illustration friday finished too late.

New Toy - Motion LE1600

Just yesterday my Motion LE1600 tablet PC arrived in the mail. It's a used one I bought on Ebay for $550 AUD. It's quite a good little machine for drawing and reading ebooks. The screen is only 1024x768, which seems low considering the iPhone 4 is 960x640 (do you really need so many pixels on a 3.5" screen?), but it is adequate for my purposes.

Computers will never be as responsive or accurate as traditional tools and this one does not come remotely close, but it's still much more comfortable and natural than a regular tablet.


Having recently watched "How to Train Your Dragon" I made some fan art to break in my LE1600. I don't generally do fan art, which is a good indicator of just how much I enjoyed this movie (hint: it was a lot).




P.S. If you are a pianist and enjoyed the soundtrack for this movie, you may be interested in these sheet music arrangements by Sebastian Wolff.

Nymph Kiss

Happy Chinese New Year

2011 is my year - the year of the rabbit. Things are off to a good start so far, and I am optimistically planning to work hard and make lots of good things.

Insanity: Process

For most digital paintings I like to paint in full colour on a single layer, but I worry that I don't get enough value contrast. With this picture I tried focusing on value first and adding in colour second. Adding the colour turned out to be very awkward and the result looks a bit flat and messy, so I won't be doing this again. It was an interesting exercise nonetheless.

	1. I began in PaintTool SAI with a very rough sketch to plan out composition and values.
	2. Painted everything in nicely. I did the bars on a separate layer to make things easier.
	3. Copied painting to Photoshop, inverted and used as a mask on a layer of flat dark purple. Adjusted levels on mask to taste.
	4. Copied the purple layer back to PaintTools SAI and painted colours on new layers underneath it.
	5. Combined all layers.
	6. Repainted unsatisfactory parts. Copied to Photoshop to adjust levels and colour balance. And it's done!

Hoop Girl and Board Boy

The boyfriend and I exchanged Christmas gifts early this year because we just couldn't wait that long. He acquired a long board, and I am the proud new owner of three hula hoops. At the moment, hooping anywhere other than around the waist is a lot like being hit rapidly and repeatedly with a stick. Ow.