Holiday Greetings!
Forest Pond keeps on lagging behind. I swear though, that as soon as I get acclimated, I will begin working on it anew. It is almost done, for heaven’s sake! After the leaf practice, what is what the Forest Pond was meant to be albeit it turned into a tree practice, I will move on to Rocks and such. So perhaps a Mountain scene of some sort? I actually have an idea for it already.
I was unable to end the year without drawing something. So, in the spirit of the holidays, I made the above Holly/mistletoe greeting. It was quite the snack, so to speak, only taking me one evening to make. Mostly thanks to references! I did my best to also stick to a more limited palette, so each of the elements only uses 3 colors: mid-tone, shadows, and highlight.
In other news, VanaVerse invested in a drawing tablet! This Wacom Intuos thing has been such a blessing, I couldn’t put it down at all once I started to play around with it. It has been so long since I last drew anything due to the dislike of having papers all around.
My first tablet piece!
This was actually my first touch, my first ever piece I’ve made with any sort of tablet. I never had the luxury of such a thing, and when a friend of mine had one, I was secretly a little jealous. But then again, I was a writer, and my friend was an artist.
Either way, I got the feel for it and was pleasantly surprised that I could draw on it without any problems. Many of the reviews and commentary I watched before getting this tablet were about the feel of it, the lag, and the difficulty of not looking at the paper, but rather the screen. My friend, I’ve been doing pixel art for two years now, never having the luxury of a drawing computer tablet! It was no problem for me!
And let me tell you, despite what anyone may say, I find the pen way more appealing and easy to use even for Pixel Art. The small tablet also helps, as I don’t need to make such huge swipes and my hand can stay relatively relaxed. Some prefer to make their tablet the size of their screen or canvas, but I say screw that. This works amazingly, and didn’t cost a fortune!
Finding the Process
While my initial process (above) of making a sketch, doing the line art and colors, and then finishing off with shadows and highlights, worked for the whale, I needed something more. Something more… tested? So I went to do my research and found this Japanese illustrator – fear not, Japanese he may speak, but the subtitles are decent!
This fine man, Naoki Saito, talks about making the atari sketch first (proportions and such), then a rough sketch, and then a ‘final’ sketch. So, I watched him do it and it made so much sense that I have now adapted it into my own drawing routine. And of course, the post-processing effects, such as lights and glows, come at the end, if there are any.
All and all, I think this whole thing will help me develop immensely as an artist, be it digital art or pixels! Especially since I found out about drawing boxes… Which is what I will do at some point. Because, you know, I never went to art school or took the art route in high school. I didn’t think I’d be good enough for the art line, so I went into the general. And failed miserably. So now I have to go through the fundamentals to get an actual grasp of this titan. Only then will I be able to use this tool decently enough to bring forth my dreams! Much like with writing.
Our Story
After the Whale, I took the next obvious and logical step… jump… leap… Oh to hell with it, I dove headfirst into an ice-cold pool of sludge and figured it would be a good time to tackle the cover of my first book, Our Story. Some may say it was a bold move, going from a cute Toofus The Whale portrait to a book cover illustration in one go. And I am inclined to agree.
But hear me out.
This book is ready, and I’ve never been fond of giving my work to anyone else. I don’t want to fight over rights, all the complications, bureaucracy… It just irks me. And on the other hand, I happen to be at least a little bit artistically inclined as well! So, despite the elitism going around in social media among the gatekeepers of who can or should do what, I decided to make my own covers. I throw digital ink at you, elitists!
Creatives are creatives. So let us not tell people what they can and can’t do by themselves, ok? While writing and art can be done poorly, that doesn’t mean that we can not learn from the feedback. Writing and art are tools for creatives to use to bring our visions to life, not for some to hoard and guard jealously. So, instead of telling people they shouldn’t do something, how about uplifting and helping them get better, hmm?
So, Our Story
I noticed this peculiar thing happening as I began making the cover for Our Story: My lines and shadows were so thin that they could barely be seen in the actual image! I think this is because I like to be zoomed in, and still think with my pixel art brain.
You see, in pixel art, the outline is typically one pixel wide. And it will show as quite a thick line in the final piece. Not so much in digital art. Turns out that my 4-5 pixels wide lines were extremely underwhelming, so, I had to get bolder. And by that I mean I cranked up the brush size considerably. At least now there is an effect, albeit a small one.
As I close this Log, I’d like to encourage you to take a look at all the things I did in 2024. Apparently, there are about 17 pictures on my Instagram, which is not bad at all! It’s more than one a month, anyway!
Let’s see if I can bring it up to 18… or even 24 this year!