United in Purpose

Art I drew for a comic jam session many moons ago.

-Jesse

“He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.” -Sun Tzu

It Has Begun

Started on some more focused studies.

-Jesse

“Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got.”  -Jim Rohn

Two of Four

Made some minor adjustments on the first page image, mostly her open eye.  One the second page I wrote a brief introduction and fixed her head (hair, face, and proportions).  Two more pages for Red, hopefully the other 50 something pages won’t take as long as these two did.  :)

-Jesse

“The key to success is to keep growing in all areas of life – mental, emotional, spiritual, as well as physical.”  –Julius Erving

Color or Colour?

Added three different under painting layer for their hair, clothes, and skin.  I also cleaned up some sketch lines and added another shadow layer set to multiple.

I have to turn this in tonight, so there’s still some work to be done before then.

-Jesse

“Don’t despair tragedies or misgivings for they are forging a path for you.”  -Ciara Ledesma

The Never Ending Need for Revisions

So, I added the freckles I forgot (again) and increased the shadows to my splash image, also adding highlights to her hair.  Pretty happy with it, but I think I’m going to go back and edit her face a little, I really want her to look as young as she is suppose to be, maybe it’s the lines under her eyes or the dark ink outlines, but she seems older than 17 years old.  :(

I thought I fixed the hair on the full body image on the right, but that doesn’t look right.

Also, been slacking on my character description.  I’m not really sure what I’m suppose to put in there, so I’m going to have to track down some concept art books and see what type of info is standard.

All and all this week started off a bit slower than I’d liked, but now that I’m over the hump (and finished with my videography project) I anticipate a momentum shift.

-Jesse

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”  -Maria Robinson

Shadows of a Shenanigan

Yesterday, I refined some of the characters and began adding shadows to the characters through a new layer set to Multiply and a brush with 100% Opacity and a 40% grey color.

I’m not sure what exactly I’ll be doing with the shelf like structures off to the left side, I initially had a grocery store in mind, but I suppose if people can do stretches on the ceiling, I don’t have to necessarily limit myself to anything in particular.  Or more specifically, limit myself to things that reside within reality.

I have to resist the urge to add too many more people, although I do really want to put another person (three or four) on the ceiling.  But I do need to keep in mind that I have to turn this in (complete) on Friday.

-Jesse

“In a world of instant gratification, patience is dying and her sister impatience has taken center stage”  -D. Ridgley

Page Layout (Work in Progress)

Where I’m at now.

Last week I had an idea to complete a character sheet for Red.  I’ve been wanting to do one for her in a while and haven’t been able to get around to it.  Last week I also had an assignment to add text to an image in my Computer Art class, so I thought I’d knock two birds with one stone.  :)

This is my starting point.  I created some placeholder text and added some head shots/head turn-around I had of her to add a little interest and fill some page space.  Not really thinking design at this point, just looking to get started and adding the elements I want to incorporate.

I started to think a little larger and decided that I’d like to create a full two page spread, one page just seemed to random and to fragmented.  So, I extended my canvas in Photoshop (Note: usually if I was creating a page layout I’d be using InDesign, it’s specifically made for such projects and has features that make the whole process, but because I initially wanted to make this for my Computer Art class I used Photoshop because that’s the program we’re required to use) and added one of my larger images of Red.

This is where I really started thinking about design, I broke out my Magazines and started looking for inspiration on how they broke up the page elements like page numbers, headers, etc.

I saw this half-tone background in one of the tutorials and thought it’d be a good fit, so I threw that in there and then started working with the character introduction text to try to get some depth by separating all the elements some how.

At this point I also decided that the splash image I was using for the first page wasn’t working.  Conceptually, it felt too emo and seemed to be too emotionally different in tone than the full body image on the second page.  Looking at it from a design aspect her looking off to the left brought the attention away from the second page instead of towards it.  After looking at it for a while I knew it wasn’t working and decided to place a temporary filler image until I figured out what to do.

After arranging and re-arranging elements for quite some time I ended up with this layout.  I ended up axing the multiple head shots, it just didn’t feel appropriate for this introduction spread.  This is more like the, “hey check out this character, her name is… here’s a little information about her…” and then they would turn the page and then probably see a front, back, and three quarters shot, and then maybe a head turn-around or some facial expressions.

So, I stuck with something a little simpler.  It was also at this stage that my teacher told me that this wasn’t going to work for my assignment and I started working on Science Blows Me Away…  :(

So, the image I’ve been working on has been for this splash page and this is where I’m at with it right now.  Still some work to do on both the character and the design.  I also have to change the hairstyle on the full body image to the current style of the splash image.

-Jesse

“Your dreams won’t work unless you do.”  -Unknown

Inking Stage

Still working at 12.5% using a soft brush to draw/sketch.

Flattened any layers to make a single layer on top of the grey background, zoomed into 50% and started erasing with a hard edge brush at 100% opacity.  Just trying to keep the best lines.

Starting to ink in the image working at 50% ( I usually save at 25% which will ensure crisp edges).

-Jesse

“When you confront a problem you begin to solve it.”  -Rudy Giuliani

Portrait in Progress

I’m working on a character sheet for Arissa Redding using the last image I made with her wearing her uniform.  I was going to use the portrait image of her pouting as part of it, but it seemed a bit too emo and clashed with the smiling persona of the uniform image.  So, I set off to start a portrait style image, but this time with Red being a little more bright and silly… and border line cute.  So, I asked my friend Google to search in a place I knew was crawling with cute Asian poses, K-Pop.

After finding the image I wanted for reference, I began searching for some solid hair style reference.  I think I’ve had five or six different hair style variations since I started really attacking this Blue Moon storyline and now I am convinced I’ve found a winner.

This “bob” hair style was suggested by one of my friends on facebook and I’m glad I had asked for feedback when I posted that image.  It actually goes back to one of my first concept images of Red (back when her body type was still based off of a top super model lol).  That seems like ages ago, but it’s only been a couple months.  Time flies…

Where I’m at now.  You’ll recognize the uniform from my previous Arissa concept, I’m really digging it, I might make some small adjustments, but it’s pretty much how I want it at the moment.

Hopefully will have the finished product and then the character sheet by Monday.

-Jesse

“Hate is not the first enemy of love. Fear is. It destroys your ability to trust.”  -Unknown

El Finito

Every time I complete one of these Character of the Week challenges (or even when I just attempt them), I end up learning a great deal of things that will aid me in the next time I decided to draw.  Whether it’s how to render a shiny surface, or if I just re-learn a process to ensure it takes less time the next time I do it.  It’s a learning process, as long as I’m still learning I’m fine.

-Jesse

“The first and great commandment is: don’t let them scare you.”  -Elmer Davis