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