Staying On Course by Russ Cox

©2012 Russ Cox | Smiling Otis Studio

Since returning from the NESCBWI Conference in late April, I have been heeding the advice I have received from friends, agents, and art directors who have told me how much they love my drawings and sketches. With that advice, I have started playing around colorizing my sketches and drawings so that the looseness and energy does not get lost in the final art. I have been doing a doodle a day (and filled up one sketchbook since returning) which has lead me more down this path. This is the first "official" illustration I did with this looser style. The idea came from a conference doodle that I liked and thought would make a good promo piece.

I quickly worked out a composition based on the doodle. I wanted a slight over the head perspective that would focus on the characters and their "vehicles".

I then refined the sketch a bit more, developing the characters and the space crafts.

Once I got the characters heading the right direction, I did a final, tighter drawing that stilled kept the freshness of the previous sketches. This was scanned in at 300 dpi so that I could render it digitally. I left room at the top left for my contact info.

I imported the drawing into Painter. With the sketch layer set as the top most layer, and set to "multiply", I began laying in a background tone and blocks of color. Painter has this cool feature which will allow you to set your light direction as you can see with the gradated tone. Previously, I was doing a grayscale underpainting but I thought the color blocks would achieve the same effect. Plus I wanted to keep things spontaneous and fresh. Oh, I used the gouache brushes for this illustration.

With the color in place, highlights were added on a top layer. This allowed me to drop the white over top of the sketch as well.

I felt that the final illustration looked a little flat so I went back in and added some darker tones and lightened ares of the road and grass. I think it looks much better.

Since this is a postcard promo, I sketched the main characters from the front for the back of the card and will keep it as a black & white piece. All that is left to do is put it together and send it off for printing. 

Everyone put your hands together and give a great big cheer for Debbie Ohi as she will sharing something truly amazing on her post in two weeks. Thanks for reading and make sure to check out the other posts from my fellow Pixel Shavers.

Ciao,

Russ

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Developing A Concept by Russ Cox

© 2012 Russ Cox | Smiling Otis Studio

Happy New Year Everyone! For my first post of 2012, I thought I would share how I developed the concept for the above illustration. 

I started out with doodling in my sketchbook. The idea of a child swinging on an old branch was too symbolize "old and new" as well friendship.

After working up the sketch into a tighter drawing, the symbolism was not working and the tree branch became too scary. Especially when the end of the branch was turned into a gnarled hand. It seemed to be ready to grab the girl instead of forming an arch to show protection.

Since the sketch was not working, I decided to go back to doodling, trying to rework the concept or come up with something complete different. Sometimes it is best to step back and come from another angle. The idea was to make the illustration warmer in concept, so I thought what if she had a large oafish friend who would do anything for her. Maybe something happened to the tree where she had the swing and her friend was welling to pretend to be one to make sure she was happy. 

After roughing in the new layout, I noticed that I did not like the position of the rope over the girl's face. Plus the hand turned down had a negative feeling so I thought he needed his hand turned upward. Since he is pretending to be a tree, it was natural to put a bird's nest in his open hand.

I sketched out the new hand and girl which I dropped over top of the existing sketch. It saved me time redrawing the sketch for a third time since I would be doing a tighter version as my base for the final color illustration. I feathered the edges in Photoshop when I cut out the images so they overlapped the original sketch seamlessly.

The flowers were removed because they were a distraction from the interaction between the two characters. This is the final sketch which became the base of the final illustration which I rendered in Photoshop.

 In the final illustration, I wanted to mute the color palette so the warmth of their friendship shined through.

Having worked in Photoshop for the past 8 months, I think I am ready to tackle Painter so I may post the results next time.

Thanks for reading and following our glog.

Russ

Look for Debbie Ohi's always inspiring and insightful post next week

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Joe Bob Gristleneck the Banjo Playing Pig by Russ Cox

© Russ Cox | Smiling Otis Studio

For my post this week, I am continuing my adventure in painting with Photoshop. I am trying to capture my traditional style of using gouache and color pencil while maintaining bright, lively colors. Some of you may be saying "why not just paint it traditionally". Working digitally allows me to experiment more with colors and adjust the layout if I need to do so without redrawing it each time. I think each time you have to redraw a sketch, it tends to loose it freshness. Even though I do color and tonal roughs for balance and light placement, I still like playing with colors as I work. With this piece I really wanted a fun balance of complimentary colors to add life to the final illustration. By building the colors up in layers, allowed me to keep things bright. Working this way also allowed me to get a colored pencil looking texture in areas, especially the pig. I also wanted the original sketch to show through as much as possible. My goal is to do a new piece every two weeks and take what I learn from the previous illustration, to build upon the next one. Hopefully my portfolio will have a new look to it as well for the New York SCBWI conference in January. This experimenting really transfers over well to working traditionally. As artist we must continue to learn new things and improve on what we know.

Check in next week for what the wild and wonderful Debbie Ohi has in store for you. I am sure it will be a treat and learning experience for all.

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Gator Pox by Russ Cox

 © 2011 Russ Cox | Smiling Otis Studio

A few months ago, I was learning Painter and trying out a new style. After chatting with some fellow illustrators, I thought I would try Photoshop for a digital painting. I chatted with Photoshop master Will Terry and followed his video tutorial to get a jump start. This is my first attempt. I must say that I found Photoshop easier to navigate and was able to create my own custom brushes very easily. Not that I am ditching Painter but I will do a few more pieces in Photoshop to get a handle on painting this way.

My first step was to do a quick sketch and scan into Photoshop. I have no idea where the concept came from. It was the first thing to pop into my head so I went with it.

After tweaking the overall contrast of the scan, I did a quick gray scale under painting to figure light direction and overall value.

I then blocked in some dark tones in various the layers. I played around with the "Multiply" settings with each layer so it would pick up some of the values from the layer underneath.

Working from dark to light, I slowly built up the colors. By using a custom made brush, I was able to create a texture on the gator. Also varying the brush width, it allows me to work in some details.

Continuing to add color and working in the dark lines, help bring the illustration together. I also wanted the original sketch to shine through.

A few highlights were added at the end. The colors were a little flat so I played with the "Saturation" setting in Photoshop to boost the color. This is the final piece. I have sketched out two more pieces that I want to try painting digitally. Maybe one of them will be in my next post.

Stay tuned next week for a special announcement from Pixel Shavings!

Ciao,
Russ

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iPad Sketch Using Artrage App - by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Last time I posted about using the Sketchbook Pro app on the iPad. This time I'm doing my Daily Sketch using the Artrage app. It costs $6.99 in the iTunes store, which seems ridiculously cheap to me when you consider how much desktop art apps cost.

 As I've mentioned before, I try to do at least one sketch just for fun every day. Since I work mostly digitally, I sometimes sketch on my iPad instead of with a Wacom tablet and pen.

Because the art apps I use don't let you move layer contents, I usually start with a very rough shape layout, to make sure my drawing isn't going to run off the edge of my workspace.

Note the user-friendly left-hand display of art tool choices. In the screenshot above, I have the crayon selected.

Next, I create a new layer above the sketch and do the line art. At this point I can hide or delete the sketch.

Next, I create another layer below the line art for color. I like the watercolor brush in Artrage, so decide to select that tool. There's a bit of a lag when you're drawing, but I don't mind this for a sketch.

Above: As I add more color, I fiddle with the brush size and other settings.

I like the way the digital watercolor paint interacts with any paint already on the canvas.

Because the number of layers is much more limited in the app than a desktop art program, I frequently merge layers to make room for new ones.

Above: I use the paint roller brush on a layer below everything else to create a simple background. I add a signature and here's the final sketch:

You can find more info (and some great tutorials) on how to use Artrage on the Artrage website.

Check back next week for Fred Koehler's post!

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To see my other sketches as well as find out more about me, please see DebbieOhi.com. If you're interested in digital publishing / e-books / creativity on the iPad (especially related to children's publishing), follow @iPadGirl on Twitter.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi is illustrating a picture book by Michael Ian Black, coming out from Simon & Schuster in 2012. Represented by Ginger Knowlton at Curtis Brown.

The Empty House

from Hazel Mitchell

This is a sketch from the picture book layout I am working on at present. It's a first rough draft and I am working with a very simple, but I hope evocative, composition.

Thanks for dropping by!

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HORSE

HORSE

from Hazel Mitchell

 

© Hazel Mitchell 2010

I'm working on a story about a girl and her horse. This is one of the first rough sketches. I will be working on this in pastel, so will be sharing the finished artwork on Pixel Shavings. 

 

Watch out in the next week or so and let me know what you think.

 Thanks for stopping by Pixel Shavings!

http://hazelmitchell.com