thedeadone.net » pencil

Final renderings and access to an A3 scanner!

Mark Cunningham — Fri, 20 May 2011 09:13:28 +0000

So this is the final rendering of the “Meave” image I asked people to vote on last week. Because there wasn’t a clear consensus, I just mixed the two, some in front, some in back. It’s not perfect. It’s still quite tilted to the right, but I’m happy with it.

I also discovered my work has a A3 scanner. It only scans in at 300 dpp but that’s not too bad. So I re-scanned my “Matthew” image.

There is a distinct similarity in the two pictures, which I’m going to have to break with the next one!

New Lost Heroes Image: Renegade Chosen Matthew

Mark Cunningham — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:30:29 +0000

If you’ve been following me on twitter (or sharing with me on Diaspora), you’ll probably have seen the work-in-progress photos of this image. It took me about 8 hours to do this. I suspect I could have done it in less time if I could have done it in one sitting, but I don’t have that luxury. I quite like it, it’s in theme and concept with my original idea.

I think I’ve come a long way in the last few years in terms of my drawings. I now approach an image as a project, which includes multiple iterations, design considerations, foundation work, etc. And this one was no different. I had a character designed from my Lost Heroes RPG project (I’m currently working on the rules a bit) and I wanted to do a new character image.

So this is Matthew, a Renegade Chosen. His body and face are covered in scars where he pulled himself together in the Void. His knife is actually the remains of a sword that he created while in the Void. It burned and melted away as he cut his way back to Earth. The knife allows him to make quick short trips into the Void and travel instantaneously to other places. However there is a darkness to his power, a manifestation of his power in the Void, a shadow.

Initial design stage

One of the early stabs at layout

When coming up with the image design, I did sketch out some concepts, and figure out what the character should look like. I used a number of manga/anima books that I have as reference. They are clean sharp images. This allowed me to jump to the next stage and create a clean outline of the character.

But then came the power of the lightbox, my favourite piece of drawing equipment (besides pencils and pens). I created Matthew’s shadow and played around with placement of the “portal” and the shadow. Once I knew that worked, it pretty much started to fall into place.

Originally the shadow held a version of the sword that was complete, but the placement of it, looked bad. So I left it out. It’s nice how the image evolved though. This was the last stage before I started adding some shade:

If I had a graphics tablet I could probably do more of these stages online and tidy up the image better, but I do enjoy using a pen or a pencil on paper.

Now back to actually doing some writing!

I think I found the perfect tablet device for me, just hope it’s not vapourware

Mark Cunningham — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:08:14 +0000

It’s called NoteSlate and it’s going cost $99 at launch (sometime in June they say). What it is, is a very simply e-ink pad and pen. No anti-aliasing so straight up black and white. And, well, that’s sort of it.

Draw on it like a pen and paper. Save and forward pages.

It does view text and PDF files, can’t tell if it’ll be an ebook reader either, but the ability to scribble over documents and text files, that’s quite useful.

There are a few other things they say, like a solar-powered charger, draw your own UI (it’s all pen based, so why not), a built-in OCR reader (not sure how powerful that would be), Wifi, games (where you draw the icons yourself), an SD slot…

Of course, no-one knows if it’s real. No-one has seen a prototype or a video of the device in action. The broken English on the website is a bit off-putting (apparently this is coming somewhere out of the Czech Republic).

Why am I excited about this device when the iPad 2 has just been launched and there is a plethora of tablet devices from companies-not-Apple? Well, most of those devices are outside of my budget. I can’t afford to buy an extra device just because it’s tablet device. I have a laptop. Personally, I couldn’t justify the rather-expensive price of an iPad or even a smartphone (my recent new laptop which I’m very happy with costs the same as a new iPad). If you’re lucky enough to have the disposable income to buy such devices, good for you!

But what I like about the NoteSlate, it makes two items I use regularly digital.

I’m an software engineer. I use a PC all day long, writing code, putting on hardware boxes, reading specs, etc. But one thing I have that’s not digital is my trusty A4-sized writing pad. I use it to quickly write notes, to diagram ideas and designs, to discuss ideas with co-workers, illustrate problems, to doddle during meetings (very important) and jot down minutes and notes, keep track of to-dos, etc. Most of the tablet devices out there would not replace this functionality.

Also, I have a sketch book and pencil is my preferred tool for drawing. Sure, it doesn’t have anti-aliasing and it’s not a wacom pad but the ability to double up and use it to sketch, even in full day light, would suit my amateur ability fine.

And at $99, if it replaces my A4 sketch pad and notes pad and brings along all the digital benefits (like backup, practically “infinite” space, sharing with others, etc.). That’s nice.

But after the disappointment of the Microsoft Courier, I’ll just wait till June and see it first before getting too excited.

Some new art work: Meave and Dead Eyes

Mark Cunningham — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:38:53 +0000

When I uploaded the photos from my five-year-old daughter’s digital camera, I found some shots that managed to capture unexpected looks and expressions on people. I was so taken by at least one I decided to work up an image.

I was also partly inspired by the character “Meave” that I created in my mind for this little piece of fiction for my Lost Heroes RPG project. Here’s the relevant two paragraphs:

The young emo-goth Meave sits by herself in the school cafeteria. She numbly rubs at the healed scars on her wrists. The other kids just ignore her today. This is a good day for her. …

Meave will see her father, the god Dagda, in the distance watching her. She will run from him, run as hard as a princess of worlds that don’t exist can run. And the crows will screech through the sky after her.

During the process I ended up branching and producing a second more creepy character (which I’ve been referring to as “deadeyes”). Anyway, here are the two completed images:

(Which one works best do you think?)

The one thing I’m learning in any of my creative endeavours; writing, drawing and even programming, is that you learn so much by working through the process from beginning to end and it greatly improves the basic fundamental skills. And the stuff I did during the process, I think, is nearly as good as the end result.

I’ve been tinkering a lot with my drawing process. For a start I didn’t use a scanner. Instead I photographed them with a digital camera and use the photos. This preserves the textures and tones much better than using a scanner. You can see this in the original pencil drawing here.

But there is a catch which I’ve noticed. The shape of the lens of the camera “bends” the drawing. It’s not perfectly to shape, there is a slight distortion. But I think it pays off in terms of the quality of the image.

It was the expression that really captured my imagination and those big lips. I’ve been told I got a good likeness of the person in the photo, however I’m not going to be uploading it here so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I already had the end image composition in my mind, but I needed a good background. I grabbed several reference images from my photo collection and developed this of a murder of crows. The image is good enough stand-alone I think.

I had originally intended this to be a silhouette only, pure black. I used ink with brushes and black markers and I ended up giving it some texture, which really worked. Then, for good measure, I used charcoal to give it that rising tint you get at twilight. Again I photographed it to keep the texture (it was also on an A3 page so my A4 scanner is too small). And once I had the images on the computer I could start playing around with composition:

Prototype of background and character

I then printed out a series of the character study to see how I could “enhance” it:

(You can see where I came up with the dead-eyes concept)

My first stab at moving the sketch to ink was atrocious (and I’m not uploading it here!). So I pass the sketch through some filters on the computer and got out a raw black and white version and I used this as the basis of the first run. I thought it looked cool, though I think part of the expression got lost (but the ratio of the head to body seemed to improve, or had you not noticed that it was off?).

Having everything set up, I just ran with it and dug up the second character visualisation:

Initially I thought it came out better, but looking at the final two pieces, it was simply different but just as good.

Once all the pieces were in place, it was just a matter of getting them into the computer and arranging them in some image editor. I did play around with a lot of the funky effects you can do in software, but I felt they didn’t add to the final image. I think such effects work better if you’re colouring the images.

Both images work, though they each have a different feel. Certainly the “deadeyes” one is more creepy, but the first is closer to my original vision. I learned lots doing this one, and I have a few other projects/ideas I want to do. I may even use this image in Lost Heroes RPG: Book of Gods, you’ll just have to wait and see.

I spent 60 euros on art stuff and did this

Mark Cunningham — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:13:32 +0000

I spent 60 euros on refilling my art stuff and I was itching to do some drawing. This was the result. Enjoy:

Playing with the Lost Heroes RPG: “Book of Gods” Cover

Mark Cunningham — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:21:56 +0000

I also had the title “An Adventures in Graphic design and Typography!” in my mind when I started putting together this post, but I think that might be a bit melodramatic. If you’re following me on twitter, you’d have seen this image before, but for those that don’t, what do you think? Does it look like an RPG you’d play?

Lost Heroes RPG: Front and Back Covers

Don’t mind the text on the back cover. It’s just a space filler for when I really write something.

I took a short break from working on Lost Heroes RPG and end up working on Lost Heroes RPG! Swinging from writing to graphics and layout. I just started playing around with ideas on paper for the front cover of Lost Heroes as a book and ended up taking it to the end.

I don’t think my efforts are professional, but they look good, good enough to fool you from a distance! I’m working with my “limits” here, using what I can do well, to produce something that looks good. The above image was generated using Inkscape, Gimp and original artwork by myself. The little icons I’ve been working on all along (just check out the “drawings” tag to see more about them).

I have to say, I’m loving Inkscape as a tool more and more. I can easily move around and edit elements of the above image. And the images are all ~~scalar vector graphics~~ scalable vector graphics so I can print them out at any resolution and they look good. I’m not sure how they’ll fit into a Desktop Publishing Tool when I finally start to think about layout of the PDFs later for Lost Heroes.

Here you can see the process in a little more detail. I used pencil, ink and charcoal while playing around with it. My original idea was the abstract “angel” with the floating symbols and a rope tided around his legs pulling him back down to a graphic-inspired city scape. I imagined the logo for Lost Heroes sort of exploding from the top of the image.

I’m not particularly happy with the Lost Heroes logo. It works but its static and a little boring. Doing a little search on “typography” found me getting quite inspired, realising that the text is as much part of the picture composition as anything else. Playing around with it, I wasn’t getting convincing or pleasing results though. I ended up just laying it out and modifying the other elements to work with it.

Satyrs and Goddesses

Mark Cunningham — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:47:20 +0000

It seems so much easier to blog about my drawings than anything else, it’s certainly not for lack of topics to write about. Probably because I have something tangible to show and talk about. So I picked up my pencils and started doing some work on Sunday. I started drawing this female Satyr, based on a signature character from Lost Heroes RPG. This is my second attempt, but it’s not perfect. The character I imagined is older and more womanly, but I like it and planned to colour it using the technique I was practising in my last post. My wife described it as a “Britney Satyr”! However, as I was taking my pencil sketch and colouring it using markers, my light box gave out all I’ve got right now is the ink image, which loses a lot of the detail.

Female Satyr (in ink)

Once the lightbox broke, I then reverted it to pencil and started attacking a subject I’d like to take on. It’s the story of Freyja and the Brisingman necklace. Because I’m knee deep in Norse mythology at the moment writing for Lost Heroes, I’m thinking a lot about the Norse gods and Freyja, Goddess of love and to a much greater extent than the Greek Goddess of Love Aphrodite, she is also the Goddess of lust. I’m going to try it in watercolours, just because I have the itching to do so.

(The picture contains nudity… so follow the more link to see it)

Freyja and the Brisingman Necklace (in pencil)

“This is my uncle, he can draw anything!”

Mark Cunningham — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:00:11 +0000

If only it was true. My nephew introduced me to his cousins by announcing I could draw anything. I wish. However I did, over the Christmas period, drew for him Spiderman, the Hulk and Batman that he could colour in. Certainly nothing exceptional, but fun to do.

I’ve also taken to doing lots of really quick sketchs these days. I carry a sketch book, a pencil, pen and eraser in my bag now. Sadly I don’t really get the chance to sketch everything I’d like to sketch, its simply not possible with small kids. You can’t tell them to sit and wait for five minutes while I do some scribbles on a pad. So in some cases I’ve taken to snapping a picture on my phone and then when I have a quiet moment, sketching from the image on the screen. Not particularly great, but the best I can do.

So I gathered up some of my best sketchs:

I find it’s fun and liberating trying to rush the sketch and just get something down on paper and at the same time trying to find the right details to capture what made you pick up the pencil. Something like the way to beat procrastinating about writing: just write something, anything, as quickly as possible. I’m finding more and more that I’m not just sketching the object, but whats around, beside and behind it.

I particularly like drawing the buildings in Paris. You just keep adding details and the picture gets more and more elaborate, the longer you’re at it.

The great thing about sketch books is that they are not just practice, not just reference, but also inspiration to yourself. In fact I’ve ditched my electronic PDA as my note taker and reverted back to an ordinary notebook and pen for those reasons. I can do little sketches, draw lines and arrows beside my text and the notes themselves become inspirations for my writing. And now that I’ve finally got my desktop back at home, I can finally get back to doing some serious writing again.

Dead Desktop PC = More Drawings

Mark Cunningham — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:41:51 +0000

Unfortunantly I haven’t been able to write much these few weeks. The main reason is our desktop PC at home is waiting to be repaired and my laptop has become the only computer left in our house – so to keep myself and my wife sane, we’re sharing it in the evening. This forced me off the sofa and digging into my art stuff again.

(Hopefully this post comes out alright on LJ, I can never be quite certain how my WordPress posts translate to LiveJournal style anymore)

Demon Icon

This picture is one that I did a while ago. I find creating and designing these little graphical symbols quite engrossing. My little sketchpad is full of the previous design iterations for theses. I should really scan in some to show of the thought processes. This one is mean to represent the “Demonic Legions of Hell” for my Lost Heroes RPG project. I know it doesn’t have any traditional iconography of demons, but that is in part intentionally as the design is more subtle that way.

Olympians Icon #3 (Colour)

Olympians Icon #2 (Black Background)

Olympians Icon

The second image I’ve only barely finished. This again was intended to be part of my Lost Heroes RPG project. It’s meant to represent the Olympian and associated Gods. I did quite a variety of designs, finally settling this one. But I’m still not completely happy with it. In fact I did two further varianets of it, which you can see below. The first one I wanted to highlight the rose more so I used solid black for the background and tried to add texture with some hatching lines. The second one, I used colour to highlight the rose, a big departure from the previous icons I’ve done. I’d rather keep to the black and white motif (easier to print) but the colour would does look quite nice. Perhaps I should play around with using greys as well as black?

(More new art and a poll after the “link”)

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Part of the reason I enjoy doing these icons is that it helps focus my mind on the next section of writing for Lost Heroes. It drags me into it, into thinking about what is important to represent in that section. Strangely most of my work these days is focused around Lost Heroes, even that which isn’t directly intended to be part of the project. For example, despite losing some of the access to my place to write, I did manage to complete this very short story: Laura and the Stalker with the Golden Blade. While it stands alone as a piece of fiction, it is embedded very much in the mythos and setting of Lost Heroes displaying many of the themes I want to put into the project.

So when I started just drawing for the sake of it, I came up with this on the right. Again the iconography and themes of the art is all Lost Heroes. I like the composition of the piece though I think it might have worked a lot better using ink instead of pencil/charcoal. Though charcoal is fun to use, dirty and messy and getting your hands into the piece. This piece on the right shows a much earlier incarnation of the same idea. I don’t know if I have “improved” since then, but I do enjoy more.

I also did one final image. It was sorta rushed but I did it on the wave of the previous piece. It’s a scene I keep imagining in my head (again, based off Lost Heroes). This rendering doesn’t do it justice, but the composition and layout of elements is there. Again done with the messy pencil and charcoal, though I think it would really work with striking black and greys.

Drawings from the weekend

Mark Cunningham — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:30:00 +0000

(Hopefully I’ve manage to lick that thumbnail cropping issue). Anyway, I did some more drawings over the weekend. I re-did the design of one of the ones I did for this post, so that it’s not so phallic:

I also did some new ones, continuing to base them on my “secret” project L___ H_____:

I also pulled out my charcoal and pencil again, concentrating on contrast, making sure my pencil lines are right (kind of taking my tips from my ink work). I like what I produced, though I feel should have placed it in a background. I’m also getting a bit annoyed about the scanning process, it always seems to take from my pencil work. I should really look into improving it.

thedeadone.net » pencil

Final renderings and access to an A3 scanner!

Related Posts:

New Lost Heroes Image: Renegade Chosen Matthew

Related Posts:

I think I found the perfect tablet device for me, just hope it’s not vapourware

Related Posts:

Some new art work: Meave and Dead Eyes

Related Posts:

I spent 60 euros on art stuff and did this

Related Posts:

Playing with the Lost Heroes RPG: “Book of Gods” Cover

Related Posts:

Satyrs and Goddesses

Related Posts:

“This is my uncle, he can draw anything!”

Related Posts:

Dead Desktop PC = More Drawings

Related Posts:

Drawings from the weekend

Related Posts: