Legitimate progress

I've actually been learning something. I've been studying light sources and color theory. Both are very simple concepts, but it really takes practice to master. Once you do, you can really do some amazing things. I haven't mastered either but I'm working on it.

I've also been taking time to learn at least one new technique in Photoshop per week. After having been away from my work computer for so long, I saw that at some point I'd stopped getting any better. I guess I just settled into a routine. I have to force myself to break the bad routines.

So yeah, here's a side by side of the same image. I feel they look worlds different and hopefully it's translated into something that everyone can see. Enjoy.

                                                   Older version                                                   New version

I think the biggest difference is the line work. I found a means of inking that really tightens up my line work. I was free handing before, which a lot of people do, but I've never been one to use a heavy line weight when I pencilled. My lines would get thicker as I inked in photoshop because it was the only way I could really smooth them out. Now the lines are very close to what's on the paper.

I've also started to add a little (very little) depth to my colors. I've always cell shaded, which I still do, but I've started adding a heavy shade of the existing color as well. Once I've mastered this, I'll start adding hi-lights. If you look at my earliest photoshop stuff, you'll see I tried to do that early on, but I could rarely get that to work. I've found a lot of good resources deviantArt.com. 

So yeah, baby steps... but I'm loving the walk.

"What? Is there blubber?"

Another speed exercise. I messed up really bad about 2/3's of the way through this piece and couldn't actually finish it. Since I was trying to get through it as fast as I could, I never stopped to save my progress... so yeah, double Matt fail.

"Faster! Faster would be better!"

I threw some colors on a sketch as a speed exercise. My process has changed somewhat, since the last time I was putting art on the web. It's about 50/50 between traditional and digital. I do layouts on paper, detail in pencil  then I decide if I'll ink with, well ink, or do the ink lines in photoshop. That choice is determined by how much rendering I did in the pencil phase. After the inks, I do all the coloring in photoshop. That will change shortly since I actually have full sets of high quality markers, colored pencils and paints. But yeah, I'm so out of practice in PS that I've been doing some speed exercises. Here's one crappy piece.

Future Tense

First digital work in a while. My computer can barely handle the stress of a pen tablet and photoshop, but it worked. Just took about 4 times as long as normal. This was a warm-up/practice.

Sketches and WiP's

So the pencil sketches will be used as WiP's to show my process from sketch to complete color. Dark Pheonix and Storm were a couple of the 10 minute exercises I've been doing to stay loose. 

Freedom Watch concepts

And finally... some more sketch crap...

Some more sketches

Some sketches