Skullies And Walkies

April 25, 2009 at 1:16 pm | In Tattooing, Walking | Comments Off

I’m working on a couple sets of flash:

Human skulls are so very unsymmertical D:

Both sets will be skulls/skeletons. One of them is a Día de los Muertos sheet (because there is nothing more amazing than a skull wearing a hat) and the other is in the style of the above photo. I hope to get them finished some time in the next couple of weeks (of course, I then have to reproduce the line art, colour the copies, reproduce the copies and then get them laminated/coated).

On to other news!

In June, Kadri and I will be walking the Southern Upland Way. It’s a 212 mile walk from the west coast of Scotland to the east. We’ll be camping for most of it (although we’ve planned for at least one stop at a hostel so we can, y’know, “rinse our smalls”) and carrying our packs the entire way. Kadri is walking in aid of her work, Cats Protection, who have been badly affected by the credit crunch. Anyone wishing to donate to her efforts, please check out this entry for more details (by donating via Kadri, you will be helping the individual branch that she works for although any donations to the main charity are still appreciated).

Photoshop Scanning and Colouring Tutorial

April 20, 2009 at 10:09 am | In Tutorial | Leave a Comment
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This is (hopefully) going to teach you how to scan in your picture and give it a cell-shade look in Photoshop. I’ll be using Photoshop version 6 in this – the principles explained should work in any version from 5 onwards (I don’t really colour any other way than this, so I don’t need a newer version). You can also use the tips given here for colouring even if you’ve digitally inked your picture. You should also be able to follow this without the use of a graphics tablet.

To use this tutorial, click on the thumbnails to see the full size images.

Step One: Pencilling and Inking

I sketch using coloured lead. The beauty of it is that you do not need to erase your pencil lines after you ink. Sometimes, depending on the paper and ink you use, the eraser can damage your ink or crease your paper. With blue lead, you don’t need to worry about any of that! Coloured lead can be bought from any good art store. Bag yourself a cheap mechanical pencil (the one I use cost me 50p), fit it with coloured lead and away you go!

Be as rough as you like with the sketching. I can’t tell you how to draw, but I find drawing lots and lots of lines helps – don’t treat the first line you draw as the final (that’s why you have a “pencil stage” to begin with). Once you are happy with your pencil drawing, start inking over it. I ink using a 0.05 Staedtler pigment pen, though it’s always better for you to try out different ones until you find one you like.

Step Two: Scanning

Scanning

The scanner set up

Open Photoshop. Go to File > Import > *insert your scanner name here*. When your scanner window pops up (ignore the fact that mine is in German – I lost the English installation disk), press “preview” (your scanner window will probably look different from mine and in this case, where is says “Vorschau” it means “Preview”). Select your image. Now, make sure that the dpi (dots per inch) is set to a minimum of 600. Then hit scan and wait for your image to upload into Photoshop!

Step Three: Cleaning the Scan

tut03

Your image before cleaning

When your image opens in Photoshop it will be huge, but don’t panic! That just means your lines will look cleaner, especially if you decide to print your art once you’re finished. For now though, we have to get rid of the blue sketch lines!

Using the Threshold feature.

Using the Threshold feature.

First, zoom in until you are viewing your picture at about 50%. Then go to Image > Adjust > Threshold. Make sure “Preview” is selected. The lines will suddenly look pixellated and pretty awful, but don’t be put off! Play about with the arrow on the line, the more to the right the thicker your lines will look, the more to the left, the thinner they will be. When you’re happy, hit “OK”. What you want is clean, pixellated lines.

After you have put your image through the threshold, select the Pencil Tool (if you can’t find it, hold in the Paintbrush Tool and a little pop-out will appear with a pencil symbol in it). Now, you have to go around the full image tidying it up. Sometimes, if you leaned a little heavy with the blue lead pencil lines, it will leave little rough looking areas (that show up as solid black pixels in places where you did not ink). Simply use the eraser tool set on pencil to get rid of them! To set the eraser to pencil, simply go to the drop-down box on the top task bar when you have the eraser tool selected.

Cleaning up your lineart

Cleaning up your lineart

Another problem that may occur when you’re looking at your scan is that some parts of the lineart are “broken”. You won’t be able to colour your picutre properly if you have open sections in your lineart, so just go to the pencil tool (hold in the paintbrush tool until the pencil pops out and you can select it) and change it to a nice thin width. Then, draw in the missing areas (it might take a while to do if you don’t have a graphics tablet, but it’s essential).

When you’re happy with your lineart, it’s time to go to the next stage.

Stage Four: Setting Up Layers and Block Colouring

Layer Set Up

Layer Set Up

Select the magic wand tool. Make sure all three options for it on the task bar are unchecked and then hit a piece of your lineart. Your lineart should be selected within the “marching ants”. Press crtl+x and this will cut your lineart. Then press ctrl+v and it will paste it onto a new layer. Right click this new layer in the layers window and name it “lineart”. Then, select your original background layer. Go to the swatches window and pick out a colour that will not appear in your finished image (in this case, a delicious bile-green was chosen) and fill the background (press crtl+backspace and it will automatically flood-fill your selected layer with the colour you’ve set to the background pallete).

Since this is such a basic image, there isn’t a lot to this section. Just go to your swatches and pick out a nice skin tone. Make a new layer beneath the lineart (press ctrl+shift+n to make a new layer) and call it “block colour”. Use the paintbucket to fill the areas you want (make sure “Contigous” and “All Layers” are selected). With some pictures, your skin colour will flood into the eyes. Just use the eraser to get rid of any spills. Also, sometimes you might find that part of the lineart within your character’s main outline is not closed. Just go the pencil tool and fill it in as you go along.

Stage Five: Creating A Mask

The Mask Layer

The Mask Layer

Now, here comes the nifty part (and the reason we had to have “closed” lineart)! Go back to your “lineart” layer and with the magic wand still selected, now check the box at the top that says “Contigous”. This will select the area outside what we want to colour. If you then press ctrl+shift+i then it will select the entire area inside your figure. When you have done this, make a new layer and call it “mask01″ or whatever you want. This is the layer that your mask is going to sit on. To make the mask, simply go to your layer window and drag the new layer down below your lineart. Then, press the symbol next to the “f” on the bottom of the layer window (highlighted). There! Your mask has been created! So, if you go to the mask layer and lets say you select bright pink, the colour can only ever go to the edge of your line art.

Stage Six: Shading

Shading On The Mask

Shading On The Mask

Go to your swatches and pick a crazy colour that’s again, not going to be in your finished image. It should be a colour that you can easily see against your block colour (you can turn your block colour off, but I prefer to work with it on, especially when I’m colouring a character that has a lot of clothing). In this case, I’ve used a shocking pink. Now, with your colour chosen and your mask layer selected, start to shade your character! There really isn’t a right or wrong way to do it. Try to think about where the source of light is coming from. You can select areas with the lasso tool, the pen tool or just with the pencil. I like to chop and change between them all, depending on what part of the picture I’m trying to colour.

When you are happy with the shading, set your mask layer to “multiply” (drop-down on the layer window). When it’s on multiply, press ctrl+u to get the Hue/Saturation options to pop-up. Now, just play around with the arrows until you find a setting you like then press “OK” and you’re done!

Stage Six: Finishing and Tips

The Finished Thing

The Finished Thing

I’ve added another mask layer with more shading on it and a seperate normal layer with highlights. It’s up to you what you want to do once you’ve completed this basic colouring stage.

Having good lineart from the start makes the whole process a lot quicker and easier, as it cuts down on the time you have to spend fixing your art once you’ve scanned it in.

I hope you’ve found this tutorial easy to understand and use. If there are any problems with it, please leave a comment below and I’ll (at some point) get round to fixing it.

Art Theft

April 15, 2009 at 8:38 am | In updates | Comments Off
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It was recently brought to my attention that someone had stolen a piece of my artwork and reposted it on their Deviantart gallery, claiming that they had made it. Thankfully, almost as soon as I reported it, the staff removed it. You’ve got to wonder what drives some people though, haven’t you?

I don’t have a problem with reposting without asking as long as I recieve credit (or in the case of my winamp skin you can repost without leaving credit but do not remove the readme.txt containing my details). I also don’t have a problem with people who take a piece of my art and create their own version of it, again as long as they credit. It’s the people who just steal something and then pretend they made it. Why? And how, more-to-the-point, can you accept critique on a piece you didn’t create?

I have not been updating this site, or my DA for a while now. It’s not that I’ve not been working on art (quite the opposite), but I feel that it’s now getting to the point, especially with my flash, that I don’t want to post it. I have begun tattooing on people, but I shalnt be posting any photos of any tattooing I’ve done online in the public arena on the grounds that what I have been tattooing have been my own designs and I feel that there is too much theft out there to warrent me posting much more original art. This is not to say that I won’t be posting anything else ever again, but if I do it will be a very small image with watermarks splashed all over it.

Enough gloom! Have a fanart!

Alex wrote an adorable drabble that I felt the need to illustrate in the cutest form possible.

The Pain Of Online Purchasing

January 18, 2009 at 8:28 pm | In Products | Comments Off
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I’m going to have to talk about this. It’s been getting on my nerves for a while…

I’m talking about the joy of going into an art store and picking something up, maybe giving it a little fondle between your index finger and thumb (to check the texture and quality, of course) and if you are as bad as me, inhale it (lets face it, we all sniff pens). So when I go into an art store and they don’t have what I’m looking for, it will take forever for them to order/they can’t order it and I could really do with getting it there and then, I feel like I don’t have a choice but to buy online.

I don’t like buying online. Can you smell the ink of a pen online? Can you feel the gsm of paper? It is the same as buying a book online – I don’t like doing it, but I don’t feel like I have much of a choice anymore (especially around these parts – we have but one book shop). Another problem I have with online purchasing is product description. At the moment, I’m looking at Magic Markers as an alternative to Copics but I will be buggered if I can find any information on the width of the fine end of them. This, of course, would not be a problem if I could just walk into a shop, pick one up and inspect it but doing such a thing during these times is almost impossible. Is it really asking too much for a site to just say “Okay, the width of the fine liner end is 0.8mm”? Maybe there is a site out there that does tell me such a thing, but I am yet to find it, just as I am yet to find a store within a 50-mile radius that has a good selection of markers (outside of Letraset and Copic – it’s as though no other marker exists, what with the onslaught of manga art). But what attracts me to Magic Markers is this selling point:

Magic Markers have both Chisel and Fine tips, and can be used on photocopies, photographic film, laser printer papers, tracing papers and many other substrates.

I like the sound of this. If there is one thing I hate, it’s colouring my original line art. Being able to use markers for flash on laser printer paper means easy and clean reproduction of line art. It means not having to spend a fortune on bleedproof paper. But as I have already said, I’m still a little reluctant to buy because I can’t find any information on the width of the fine nib. Again though, just because is says that you can use it on laser printer paper doesn’t mean you actually can…

And so I struggle on with markers.

Flush flush... Again I jump!

Flush flush... Again I jump!

It’s getting a little easier. I’m still not impressed with the width of the “fine” end of ProMarkers (I’m used to using 0.05 or smaller for inking). I can’t get the detail in that I would like, but the process of blending has become a little easier as I have practised more. Also, I bagged myself some more individual markers (the likes of violet, pastel pink and cornflower blue). Thankfully, they were one of the few products that I could find individually for sale (like I said in the last post, buying the 5-pack sets would double some of my colours up).

They have been great for sketching though, and I will admit that I love the grey blends. They are ideal for Japanese-style flash backgrounds and getting ideas onto paper in general. Since getting the new colours, I’ve found layering and blending much easier. I still need a hell of a lot of practise using them though. I don’t think marker work will ever be as sharp in reproduction as digital colouring is, but it makes a nice change getting all mucky and covered in ink.

ProMarkers

January 13, 2009 at 12:11 am | In Products | Comments Off
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So I treated myself to some new ProMarkers by Letraset. I have not used markers before, so I thought it would be better to go in at the shallow end and buy the cheaper version, rather than splash out on a set of Tria or Copics only to find that I don’t like using them. The set I bought was the Comic Art Set 2. I’d like to share my experiences since using them.

The Box Set

Comic Art Set 2

Comic Art Set 2

I chose Set 2 because most of my art leans towards the colours favoured in this set. Set 1 seemed a little too “shojou” for me (I likes it gritty). Set 3 was too “chibi”. However, one problem I picked out before ordering was that there is not a single green tone in Set 2. These are the colours listed:

    Cool Aqua, Poppy Red, Henna, Dusky Pink, Sandstone, Saffron, Petrol Blue, Cool Grey 2, Cool Grey 4, Black

I ordered the following additional pens as singles:

    Lime Green, Grass, Moss, Lemon, Pumpkin, Blender

One colour set I completely forgot about though was purple. I do not have a single purple tone. This is mostly my own fault, as I was the one who forgot to order one, but looking at the ranged available in each set, the only one offering a purple with it is Set 3, which is just a little too pastel for my tastes and needs. Also, looking at the additonal 5-pack sets you can buy, I would be doubling some that I got in Set 2 up. That’s why I bought some individually, though of course I forgot a purple (and thinking about it now, a nice pink, since the only thing close is Saffron and it is more peach than pink, but I’ll discuss that later).

Ordering

Since I ordered from the official Letraset site, I thought I’d include a little section on them too.

I’m not overly keen on the different sectioning on the site. Searching “ProMarkers” brings you to the Manga section of the site. Unaware that I could view ProMarkers in the Design section (yes, I was being slow, but bare with me – It was Hogmanay after all!), I missed out on looking at the Aqua ProMarkers before buying. I strongly urge anyone who’s looking to buy ProMarkers to look at them before purchasing. The Manga section of the Letraset site does not offer the full range of ProMarkers available from them. I don’t know why (maybe they assume that manga artists have no interest in the watercolour look), but I thought that it was a bit shorthanded of them.

Saying this, buying from the Letraset site was a joy. I am a bit funny about buying online. I normally choose to buy straight from the official sites, even if it means it costs more. They have a very secure payment system, though I will say that they do not clearly state on their main site what types of card they accept. This ultimately wasn’t a problem for me, but I can understand how it could be to a younger artist who perhaps only has a debit card (don’t worry, they accept them) and no Paypal account.

Delivery was sharp. I ordered on the 31st of December and had them on the 6th. Taking into account the holiday’s plus the weekends, it was a quick delivery. No complaints there!

Performance

To start with, don’t kid yourself that you can use markers (alcohol-based ones anyway) on regular paper. You can’t. It won’t neccessarily soak the paper and rip, but they will ruin whatever you have below your paper (as the living room table found out the moment I had them out the box). You will need to get some bleed proof stuff. Letraset of course sell it, but I bought a Daler Rowney from my local art shop.

Despite the initial problems with my colour-selection, Set 2 offers enough for me to experiment with. The first problem that I come up with, however, is that the fine liner Letraset supplied me with in the set is next to useless. The word “smear” comes to mind (Heh… Smear…). After one quick sketch with it, it has been abandoned, never to be used again. Not only did it streak all over the paper as the ball of my wrist swept over it, but black fingerprints magically appeared too. Even after allowing it to dry onto the paper, the ink from the fine liner bled horrifically with the ink from the actual markers (and this was on bleed proof paper). Suffice to say, I am sticking with Staedtler Pigment Liners, which have been good to me for a very long time.

Anyway, once I discovered the problem with the Letraset fine liner and prompty binned it, I got onto sketching and colouring with the markers. Soon, another problem reared it’s head.

Bleed prood paper is not very scanner-friendly.

Having to photograph sketches makes me a sad panda

Having to photograph sketches makes me a sad panda

This means that everything I have done with markers, I’ve had to photograph. Not really something you think I should be complaining about, since it’s not Letraset’s fault, but marker work does not reproduce very well. After changing umpteen settings on the scanner and the camera, it still comes out looking nothing like the original piece. There may still be a way around it, after all I have only been experimenting with them for a few days. Overall, they are very easy to use. My only other problem is that I am used to using 0.05 fine liners, and the thin-ended tip of the marker is just a little too fat and clumy to fill detailed line art.

Conclusion
I would still recommend buying ProMarkers to get a feel for using them before spending a small fortune on a set like Tria or Copic. However, I don’t feel that any of the three sets offered by Letraset give you “what you need” to make comic art (or flash). Therefore, I would suggest buying individual markers first, and if you are using it for comicking, buy the 5-Set Skin Tone set. Out of the two flesh tones I recieved in Set 2, only Dusky Pink is of any use to me. As I said earlier, the Saffron is a little peachy for my tastes. I would rather have just had a proper pink included.

I don’t think I’m going to go much further with markers. I will use them for sketching and designs, but as for serious artwork, they are just not fine-tipped enough for me. As fussy as I am, I will only draw on A4 paper (unless it’s for a fitted piece of flash). Therefore to get the amount of detail that I am happy with, I would have to draw on A3 plus. Then there is the fiasco of making copies of the original line art to take into account… No sir, the marker and I don’t look as though we have much of a future!

Japan Day

July 11, 2008 at 10:40 am | In news | Comments Off
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Thanks to a certain someone (and I need to give them a proper thank you!), I will be attending the Japan Society North West’s Japan Day. I’ll be there from 11am until 5pm drawing, giving away little samples of my manga (which I’m cutting up right now!) and answering questions/pimping myself.

It looks like it’s going to be a great day; it’s been a few years since I’ve been to Liverpool, and I’m looking forward to seeing the city and meeting enthusiasts from the north west!

Changing Over

July 7, 2008 at 11:06 pm | In news | Comments Off
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I’ve decided to make the switch over to WordPress. This is not because I can’t code (as I most certainly can…), but that I just don’t have the time to maintain a code-written site from scratch. This move is hopefully one of convenience. I am new to both WordPress and Flickr, so it’s going to take me a while to get the site up and running properly, but hopefully once I’ve got it’s content at 100%, it will be quicker for me to make updates. As it is, my old host (Atspace, bless them… Still one of the best 100% free hosts out there) recently changed its layout, and I fell out with it a little…

I’ve also decided to make the switch due to the fact that so many people are now using so many different browsers. I personally use Opera (I love the magic wand feature, as well as it’s transfer window), and I believe that WordPress gives the most universal look over browsers, as in, there’s no CSS flaws that don’t show on my browser, but shows on everyone elses’.

Anyway, I hope you bear with me while I get things up and running! My live links are at the side, so if you want, you can still check out my DA gallery and my webcomics!

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