Little Crazi and the Tooth Fairy + process

I've spent the last month trying to figure out Photoshop and Illustrator. I've got to say that drawing in Photoshop is a very pleasant experience, mostly. My biggest "come-the-f**k-on!" is the fact that you can not easily and in an natural manner change the size of the eraser when using a Wacom tablets eraser at the top of the stylus. When using a brush with the tip of my stylus I press an Express Key configured to CTRL+ALT plus a stylus button configured as a right click and then I drag the stylus right/left to decrease/increase the brush size. Doing this maneuver while the pen is flipped still resizes the standard brush, not the eraser, and it seems like there is no other way to do this. The only way I've managed to resize the eraser is to:

1. Flip the stylus back to its tip
2. Select the eraser tool
3. Resize the eraser
4. Select brush again
5. Flip the stylus back to the eraser.

This. Is. A. Hassle.

More on the PS/Illustrator experience in a later post. Yesterday I finished my first drawing in Photoshop. I realized when I was done that this piece was probably more than a little bit inspired by the I Hate Fairyland comic by Skottie Young. Well, this is the result:

Little Crazy and the Tooth Fairy (click to enlarge)

 The process

Below is a animation of the process of drawing this picture. In general, it goes as follows:

1. Define a clear easily readable silhouette.
2. Sketch rough on new layer.
3. Iterate the sketch for more details and clean up as you go until happy.
4. Ink up the line art on new layer.
5. Select the new silhouette (magic wand outside ink, invert selection shrink selection by 2 px).
6. Fill the character silhouette with black on new layer below ink.
7. Lock transparency and apply base colors.
8. On new multiply layer between ink and color: apply shade. Don't use black/gray, pick a color, this makes it more alive. I also used a layer mask here to make it easier for myself.
9. Apply a darker and more saturated tone of same color to create heavier shades where needed. 
10. Add highlights where needed on a new screen layer above the shades.
11. Apply squashed fairy.
12. Add balloon, text, background and other decorations as you see fit.
13. Sign the thing.

Little Crazy and the Tooth Fairy, Process.

That's it for now.
10-4 //Niklas Häggström

New project: House Cluster

Hi there! I've been of the grid for a while, sadly. But, there is a good reason for that, I've given myself an assignment. I want to practice some perspective drawing and to accomplish this I've decided to draw a "vertical village" type thing. Sort of a cluster of buildings glued on to a big block of some sort. This will give me a bunch of perspective obstacles and, also, some exercise for my imagination since I want all buildings to be different from each other. I started off drawing a three point perspective version but I soon realized that if I wanted to actually finish this project I needed to simplify it a bit. (Actually I ran into problems I didn't find an answer to.)

So next I started over but this time using only a two point perspective, hopefully this won't remove all of the feeling of grandeur that would be nice to end up with. I also realized something else, namely, using a kind of simplistic style (that was my idea all along) this might actually be kind of cool looking and I might want to print the result and frame it in a rather exaggerated size. How do I accomplish this with such a drawing? Vectors! So I'll try to do a fairly exact lineart drawing in Krita and then, in one way or another i transfer that to Inkscape to create vectors and color it there (I will probably have to retrace all the lineart in Inkscape, but, that's a later problem). It would be nice to be able to do it all in Inkscape but the perspective-helpers that kicks arse in Krita is nowhere to be found in Inkscape.

So far this is what I've managed to accomplish:

House Cluster, work in progress.

I'll try to do some guides (pun alert!) on perspective drawing in Krita in the near future, like setting up the helper guides and such.

'Til then!
10-4, over'n'out! //Niklas

Moody close-up

Yesternights drawing. Started with a face, the background was added on a whim, sort of. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. You tell me. Kind of moody and dark, I like it.

Moody close-up

Process-shot

10-4 //Niklas

Doggie Doodle

Tonight I was doodling around in Krita on my Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 and ended up with a rather cool doggie, if I may say so myself.

Doggie Doodle

10-4 //Niklas

DC Comics character lineup

I've been AFP (away from pen) for a while and needed to kick start my drawing again. What better way to do this than to draw a cartoon version line up of some of my favorite DC Comics characters? 

DC Comics cartoon character line up. (Click to enlarge)

What do you think? Can you name them all? +1 and/or comment, please.

10-4 //Niklas

The Mighty Restroom Wizard Cartoon

Yeah, I sort of had it. Period. I had to do what every self respecting swede would have done in my position: I clenched my fist really hard in the pocket and wrote a note. B-\

This particular note i did in Krita using my Cintiq Companion 2 from Wacom. Below the cartoon is available as PDF in both Swedish and English.

• Restroom Wizard - Eng.pdf
• Restroom Wizard - Swe.pdf

There you go! Feel free to print it and put it up on the wall of your office restroom, just please, don't modify it.

10-4 //Niklas

Poison Ivy

Next in the DC-line for drawing is Poison Ivy. She'll now join Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Two-Face and Joker in the hall of sweetness.

Poison Ivy

10-4 //Niklas