I really want a Cintiq but can’t quite justify the $3,000 price tag with all of the things I need to do this year. Though I may still talk myself into it.
I’m definitely going to get a Wacom Intuos 4 wireless tablet though. I had a tablet back in 2000 and the tech just wasn’t quite there. Now, I think it is. If the response is anything like the Cintiq, then I should have no problem.
The real problem is clicking “check out” on Wacom’s website.
This idea hit me like most usually do – in bed when I should be sleeping. I was dealing with insomnia anyway, so I sketched this out while watching The Rivers Edge on early morning HBO.
I started inking and coloring it in Illustrator but I tried to make sure I was really done with the sketch before I started. I’d say that the sketch is solid but I’m not sure about how the inking is coming along so far.
As usual, it’ll drive me nuts until I finish it.
Work in progress
I started this piece in June of 2009. It started as a sketch I had done before bed one night, based on a photo from a talented photographer named Tom Klubens. Later, I had seen some amazing vector portraits of some of the roller derby gals. So I decided to try my hand at something similar.
Jane Ire. Vector Drawing. 8"x10". 2010.
I barely knew what I was doing here. My Adobe Illustrator skills are limited and often I was hindered by just not knowing how to best do something. Surely there is some level of live tracing that I could have done but instead I simply created areas of color and shapes with the pen tool. I worked at this off and on for a year and a half. Heh.
Some portions are more focused than others. I was working mostly from my sketch but referencing the photo for color variations and shadows. The result is not so much a faithful rendering but more of a stylized rendering. Here’s my original sketch for comparison.
Jane Ire. Pencil on Paper. 8.5"x11". 2009.
I’d really like to perfect this style. I’ve seen a lot of vector work that impresses the hell out of me.
In the past two weeks I’ve put the finishing touches on my comic book as well as knocked out a booth design for a small scale internal tradeshow/competition. The latter included flyers, posters, web graphics, website and t-shirts.
I think I’m a designer once again.
Conference Display
The comic is coming along and I should be done in decent time. I admit, it got a little out of control. We needed 8 pages and I have 20. Ah well.
Page 1 of my comic for school, inked
Meanwhile I just got back from Horror Hound in Cincinnati. I’m always inspired by guys like Joel Robinson, Billy Tackett and Todd… Todd… oh I don’t recall his last name. But he’s a very very good illustrator. Joel is big into digital painting while I think Billy does all of his work traditionally. They’re all nice people too. It’s good to be inspired by people worth being inspired by.