Doodletime

I started messing with some perspective drawing in krita, started to doodle and a couple of hours later I ended up with this. I think the result is pretty cool, actually.

10-4 //Niklas

Changes

To make this thing a little less me and a little more of its own platform I decided to rename this blog. With that came a change of URL. I don't think that will affect anything too much at this moment so what the heck. The only real backlash is that I lost my comments and +1's. Not too many of those yet so that's no biggie either. I also at the same time created some new social accounts to link to this blog.

• Google+: Profile
• Instagram: @RookieToon
• Twitter: @RookieToon

Book delivery

Oh yeah! I received this kit of goodness today! I don't know how to get the time to finish the batch of comic albums I last bought, read this AND get some drawing done soon, though.

The Jumper Cartoon

I need to practice my freehand drawing skills and also, I'm trying to figure out Krita. So, yesterday evening I sat myself down with my laptop and the Wacom tablet to see if I could do some type of cartoon character drawing. 

While at it I also got the idea to document the process so I managed to download, install and set up Open Broadcaster Software to capture my screen while working. The captured video was edited using Microsoft's Movie Maker and then uploaded to YouTube. My first YouTube video. That's huge! ;-)




The resulting image? Below.

10-4 //Niklas

Evening run

Went for a run yesterday evening. Yeah, that's it.

Misspelled. "west" should of course be "vest". Dumb error. I blame the late hour and fatigue.

10-4 //Niklas

Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 - My life needs this

The Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 is scheduled for release in "Early 2015". Can't you guys be a little more precise, please? "Early 2015" is frigging NOW! I. Need. This. In. My. Life!

http://www.wacom.com/en-us/announcements/cintiq-companion-2

Challenge #009: Wine bottles

Todays challenge: draw wine bottles. Nice bottles, messy drawing.

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #008: My art supplies

The subject of challenge #008 is "My art supplies". This is pretty much it. Except for the laptop and my Wacom tablet, but hey, I drew this in a cafe so this was it at the moment.

10-4 //Niklas

New weapons...

Payed a visit to the magnificent Pen Store today. Aaah... It felt so good...

Challenge #007: A view out of a window

The solution of todays challenge is clearly emotional. I'd really like to just open up the windows to find that I've been fooled to believe it's still winter outside.

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #006: A stack of books

This challenge, I made into a perspective training session. I'm happy with the outcome.

EDIT: Apparently I 'm tired. the date in the drawing is wrong. I managed to flip two digits. Obviously it should be 2015-01-13...

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #005: A scene in a restaurant

Challenge subject d'jour: A scene in a restaurant. Think I did pretty well on this one.

+1 or comment, damnit!

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #004: My non-dominant hand

Fourth day of challenges. This time: my non-dominant hand. That'd be the left one.
Hands... oh my...

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #003: A pile of unfolded laundry

Drawing challenge subject-o-the-day: A pile of unfolded laundry. This was tough, fabrics, folds and stuff, luckily I've seen a fair share of these types of piles... Anyway, turned out pretty cool, not realistic, not scientific, but kind of cool looking.

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #002: A glass of water

The challenge subject d'jour: A glass of water. I am not very happy with this but, hey, I'm here to learn.

10-4 //Niklas

Challenge #001: Old Shoes

After getting the idea to take on a challenge (Challenging myself on a daily basis), yesterday after going to bed I took on the first drawing. The subject was "Old Shoes". I  did this in bed between eleven and midnight. So there's no excuses. Draw, there's always time and place.

Like it? Comment and/or +1 !

10-4 //Niklas

Challenging myself on a daily basis.

To challenge my self to draw on a daily basis and to try to draw stuff I don't usually draw I'm going to do a daily drawing challenge type thing. I found the list of sketchbook ideas below yesterday and I'm going to try to do one of these sketches each day. I found the list on the Virtual Instructor Blog.

101 Sketchbook Ideas

#001. old shoes

#002. draw a glass of water

#003. draw a pile of unfolded laundry

#004. draw your non-dominant hand

#005. draw a scene in a restaurant

#006. draw a stack of books

#007. draw a view out of a window

#008. draw your art supplies

#009. draw wine bottles

#010. draw children’s toys

#011. draw a person laying down

#012. draw a person sitting in a chair

#013. design a typeface

#014. draw different types of trees

#015. draw objects in your pocket

#016. draw game pieces

#017. draw a caricature of yourself

#018. draw the same object drawn with different techniques (hatching, cross hatching, stippling, etc.)

#019. draw your favorite pet

#020. draw a copy of your favorite Master’s painting

#021. draw a crumpled piece of paper

#022. draw a brown paper bag

#023. draw an old chair

#024. draw a person from history in which there is no photo reference

#025. draw an old person’s face

#026. draw a stapler

#027. draw an old radio

#028. draw an old car

#029. draw an old camera

#030. draw a pair of glasses

#031. draw an open book

#032. draw a bicycle

#033. draw anything made out of metal

#034. draw a hammer

#035. draw tree bark up close

#036. draw ocean waves

#037. draw a pile of rocks

#038. draw a cup of pencils

#039. draw hard candy

#040. draw any fruit (sliced open)

#041. draw any vegetable (sliced open)

#042. draw a reel mower (tough one)

#043. draw a pine cone

#044. draw a seashell

#045. draw a banana peel

#046. draw an old cabin

#047. draw an old factory

#048. draw flowers in a vase

#049. draw simple forms (cube, sphere, cylinder, etc.)

#050. draw old farm equipment

#051. draw a sailboat

#052. draw people standing in a line

#053. draw a bowl of peanuts

#054. draw a bowl of nails

#055. draw bushes or shrubbery

#056. draw several eggs on a surface

#057. draw your favorite insect

#058. draw a flower up close

#059. draw a thumb drive

#060. draw an exotic fish

#061. draw a scene from history

#062. draw a feather

#063. draw any detailed machine

#064. draw the insides of a watch or clock

#065. draw a skull

#066. draw an apple

#067. draw a portrait of someone that is a different race from you

#068. draw water coming from the faucet

#069. draw a creek in the woods

#070. draw a pair of socks

#071. draw an object that is moving

#072. draw a Cubist portrait

#073. draw a view from a window

#074. draw a candle in the dark

#075. draw three random objects from your refrigerator

#076. draw a bowl of popcorn

#077. draw a set of keys

#078. draw someone peeling off their skin

#079. draw your hand holding an apple (or other object)

#080. draw your feet

#081. draw yourself as a cartoon character

#082. draw a patterned cloth on a table

#083. draw a wine cork

#084. draw a face in profile

#085. draw a candlestick

#086. draw a fictional woodland creature

#087. draw a close up of grass

#088. draw an object three times in different lighting

#089. draw a pile of jewelry

#090. draw a close up of someone’s hair

#091. draw a doorknob

#092. draw a bird in flight

#093. draw a video game controller

#094. draw a pile of yarn

#095. draw a stack of dinner plates

#096. draw a trompe l’oeil image

#097. draw hung drapery

#098. draw a water sprinkler

#099. draw calm water that is reflective

#100. draw a person falling

#101. just draw something!

Wish me luck!

10-4 //Niklas

The Poser

Well, it's been a while. To say the least. I haven't bee too lazy though, during the holidays I've been focusing on pencil-and-pad-action (sketching) and, also, I've discovered Pinterest. An unlimited source of articles and tutorials about whatever your interest may be.

One of the sketches I worked a bit more is a simple cartoon man posing, like he's serenading his love. I sort of like this because it's so simple in its style. No junk, clean lines, simple facial features. Three things ha me erasing and redoing more than the other. The hair, the shoes and last but far from least the hands. Damn those hands! Damn them to hell! Whenever I try to draw hands I feel like a first grader again.

Pencil sketch.

When deciding to take this sketch further I set up a couple of guidelines to myself:

• I'd like to make this for Instagram.
• I want to paint it in Gimp only, without using paths for the ink, which has been my usual modus operandi. I really suck at the practical craft of drawing and I really need to practice my pen-handling, so this is going to be a challenge. 

First off: Instagram template:

I just made a specific post about that here: Gimp Instagram Template so let's just cut to the chase.

Next up: Illustration.

I created a new "Double Instagram" (see link above) and imported the sketch above. To tidy the sketch up a bit I adjusted the levels so that the white paper became a bit whiter and the messy lines lighted up a bit. After that, the process ended up something like this:

Illustration process.

1. New layer for color.
2. Start coloring
3. Realize that the inking will be tough to accomplish if color is in place.
4. Create a new layer for ink.
5. Start inking by tracing the sketch using the Ink Tool and my Wacom Intuos Pro tablet.
6. Do every line over and over again using CTRL-Z until I'm somewhat satisfied.
7. Continue coloring flat colors using the Paintbrush Tool and the tablet. Settings: Bush = Hardness 100, Dynamics = Ink (no pressure opacity at all, pressure only affects size).
8. Create a new layer for shades, above Color, below Ink.
9. Add Layer Mask and paint shadows as described here: The air bass player drawing tutorial.
10. Create some generic background and lighten it up around the character.
11. Add "watermark" stamp.

Baddading-baddaboom! There it is! Pretty nice, but as expected the ink job is sort of messy.

The Poser, finished illustration.

The "watermark" stamp and the background, I actually made to be reusable. How they were created I'll get back to in another post. 'Til then...

10-4 //Niklas

Gimp Instagram Template

I'd like to create a new, reusable, template in Gimp so that I easily can create new illustrations and images specifically for Instagram. To accomplish this I open Gimp and go to the Windows menu > Dockable Dialogs and select Templates.  

Dockable Dialogs menu

This opens up the dialog below, click the "Create a new template"-button (circled in blue).

Templates dialog.

In the New Template dialog, I name the template "Double Instagram" since I like to try to paint in double size and the scale it down on bitmap export. (For some reason I believe this is going to ease up on most of my inking problems.) I set the size on double the Inkscape image size (currently 640 * 640 pixels). 

Create a New Template dialog.

After clicking OK, you'll find the new template among all the other ones in the Create a New Image dialog.