MikeJL Blog

Been posting on by other blog Orcs and Dragons. Gaming little also.



Note: blogspot has really improved. Might move all blogging over.

I do not have any art training. Just go through lots of podcasts, video tutorials, drawing books and lots of practice. I feel I’m improving however I need to get grounded on my work flow and media.

I know the style I like, and feel I am best at; I call it a gritty comic look. example: www.darkhorse.com/Features/Desktops/387/Conan

My workflow is:
- Sketch
- Scan
- Re-ink
- Render and color

I like the process however struggling with how much sketch detail to do, how much re-inking and what is the best media to use.

I purchased ArtRage for a few reasons; one is the smaller set of tools. Here is what I will try to move toward:

- Sketch (detail, and use art pens to line)
- Scan
- New ArtRage paining (standard paper, 1024 x768 100dpi)
- Open scanned sketch as tracing image
- Use the “Paint tracing image to current layer”
- Remove tracing image
- Add new layer (transparent and top of original drawing)
- Use oil-paint tool (50 % pressure, no thinners, 17 % loading)
- dab around in strategic places, just to get the overall color scheme right
- Use Pallet knife (30% pressure) to blend
- Use a non loaded brush with some thinner for additional work (like shine effects)

I’ll try this process on this sketch I did call "Trouble Arising":

I had my eye on this book ever since I flipped though it at the local book store. It arrived (Amazon order) yesterday and really has my drawing juices flowing.

The Future of Fantasy Art

I also got a copy of ArtRage 2.6


I was looking for a simpler drawing program. This offers a nice suite of drawing tools and some features that hooked me:
- Drawing rulers and stencils
- Reference Image viewer
That and the price of $20 was a great deal. I’ll still use Corel Painter for some greater details and effects.

So I’m using this sketch in ArtRage to get use to using its features. This sketch, showing a warrior moving swiftly into battle,

as a study in capturing motion.

Throw in the new Wacom Bamboo Pen I got and I have my hands full, literally, of good drawing going on.

Some time ago I joined Twitter.. I joined to win stuff. And it paid-off; I won $50 Amazon gift card from a massively.com contest. So I ordered a Bamboo Pen tablet




It arrived Friday and I LOVE IT! I took a few hours to get use to it, at least enough to do this drawing titled “Three down”



Excited to do more with it.

At out Halloween parties I like to hang paper and do a mural. I've done three so far (here is 2006 wall)


This year is our "Hell-Of-a-party" so its a hell of a party theme for this wall. I wanted to document the process on making the wall. .. here it is and I'll update as I go..

I wanted to try an alternative to Corel Painter Essentials 4 so I got Pixelmator. I like Corel however its been a bit buggy on my Mac lately (crash a few times and few GUI issues where I had to relaunch).
So I did little re-inking / layer work on my orc rage sketch in Pixelmator last night. I collect lots of concept art books so I wanted to give it that look. Very happy with the look I achieved.




This was more experimentation than final work. I need to take time to learn more on Pixelmator. So far its off to a good start.

UPDATE (9/12/09): Love Pixelmator. Wa able to do some good coloring and background effects: