My workflow (a.k.a. let's save some face)

So, I was working on a little Buffy The Vampire Slayer comic (love that show!). But it's taking longer than I expected... pro-tip: never, never, NEVER do anything stupid on your file without saving first! Otherwise you'll regret it! Sigh...

Ahem! So I pictured that this could be a good moment to show you guys my workflow. A little behind-the-scenes kind of thing.

Here's a screenshot.

The secret is revealed! I use a computer that draws for me!

Note: Pretentious hipster art terminology ahead! Read at your own risk!

Anyway, I work on Manga Studio. It's a software created with comic book artists in mind. It allows you to use a whole lot of tools and exports the finished drawing in bitmap format (b&w only), creating smaller file sizes and better reproduction when you print.
It also has a lot of cool features like virtual rulers and perspective tools. Those are really useful, but a little more difficult to explain... the rulers can be of any shape, and will make curves and the like very easy to draw.

When I'm drawing I like to use references. In this case, as you can see, I added some pictures of the real actors in their own layers, so I can draw the cartoon characters more accurately (still have a lot of work to do with Will and Buffy!). That's a great advantage in digital media, if I was doing this traditionally I would need to look at pictures and at the paper once and again, over and over, disrupting my workflow.

After the sketch is done (like you see up there), I start inking on a different layer. I usually lower the opacity of the sketch layer to 30% or so, and start going over the image. Sometimes I draw things that weren't there in the original sketch! It all depends on how adventurous I feel.

Whew! So there's that! If you have any questions, go ahead and ask! I use a Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet to draw in the computer. And remember that no amount of software or hardware is going to make you better at art--you just have to practice daily!

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The contest is STILL on! Come on, comment and tell me what you'll like to see me draw!

Good old Kratos

Who doesn't love Kratos?

Now, I guess this is a bit hypocrital, as I don't really love Kratos. I haven't played any of the games, so there!
This entry was suggested by Crisalys. Be sure to check her blog, she's a fellow starving chilean artist who's just getting started!

So many suggestions last time! I'm honored! Keep them coming, but I already have one I would like to do on the next post ;)

Chile's national team kit evolution

No one asked me for a specific drawing last entry, so I'll post whatever I want, haha.

Did you know that my national team is over a hundred years old, and that we've never won an important international championship? That's true! We have reached finals in Copa América, and a lot of third places in other tournaments, but no actual victories (except in 2009's Toulon U-20 competition). Argentinians seem happy to remind us about this a lot, showoffs.

The thing is, we've always had a few good players, but in this current generation of footballers we actually have enough of those to make a good, balanced team. Let's hope for the best, Brazil 2014 is around the corner!

My favourite kit is the classic one from 1962... I would love to get a modern spin on that, sort of like France's current jersey. But our current kit is pretty cool as well.

Special thanks to Juan Pablo Villablanca and his blog Chilekits for the excellent reference material! Check him out!

Suggest me something to draw next time! I'll link to your blog as well!

A Bear and a Girl

Huh. I don't really feel satisfied with this... my coloring was way off today. I was not inspired.

BUT!

That's precisely why I started this art blog. That's why I'm taking suggestions on future drawings.

Because I want to improve. To meet deadlines. To get faster. And it's working! Hopefully I can keep it that way... and thanks for the nice comments yesterday! 

Anyway, winning entry by Maddie, a polish fellow artist-slash-blogger. Check her blog, the work she does is breath-taking!

Draw...

Maybe a Sweet little girl? 

Let she poke a big bear;).

Ang the bear must read a newspaper with a mario in frontpage! 

Can't say we don't listen to our customers here!

So... college

I don't have much to say. College work...

I always figured stuff like this would come up once in a while, but I didn't expect it so soon. Huh.

Still, nothing will keep me away from my daily update!


The contest is still on--- keep commenting!


Sorry for the brevity, hope you guys understand... so  many of my readers are in college, you probably know how crazy it can be!

Knight vs Knight

Well, today's winning suggestion came from BDTC.

Also, for next week you should draw a small warrior, in shining armor, about to fight a giant warrior in black armor who is at least 3 times bigger than him
If you wanna make it humorous, have the little guy shaking in his boots saying "I didnt mean to steal your stuff, I swear!"

The borders in the Black Knight came out a little pixelated. Again, let's all hear it from me! "Damn you, software compression!" Oh, Adobe Photoshop, why must you taunt me so?

BDTC is a writer of... stuff. Short stories, mostly. They're pretty well made, be sure to check his blog if you're an avid reader!


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In your comments, tell me what you would like to see me draw. Every day for a week I'll pick one suggestion and I'll do it! I'll also link to your blog. Everybody wins!

Racoon vs Snapping Turtle

So the winner for this entry is none other than Hasidic Plumber!

Raccoons vs Snapping Turtles. It's a death match. It could be american gladiators style or ancient death match style. It's all or nothing, the losing race, gets extinct.


Check out the Plumber's blog! He's a solid humor writer, that likes to comment on strange news from all over the world. If you haven't checked his blog already, get to work on that!

(I almost did Fernando Torres and the Whale-with-a-Human-Face, but this time the concept was just so delicious)


Now, I wanted to upload this as soon as I finished but I couldn't export the image at a low resolution while mantaining the little dot patterns (halftone). It came out a little weird, so I just decided to go with a greyscale drawing... here's my best attempt at exporting halftones for web, in case you're wondering.

I just don't understand why there are little squares in the grey-- it was supposed to just be little dots! But still, that's sort of how I wanted it to look. Stupid Manga Studio exporting options... not even Photoshop could help me this time-- Adobe, you'll be hearing from me!

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In your comments, tell me what you would like to see me draw. Every day for a week I'll pick one suggestion and I'll do it! I'll also link to your blog. Everybody wins!

Ref, you're such a jerk

Ah, the football ref! Always there, ready to make the match incredibly frustrating.

FIFA doesn't allow video replay, so the job of the ref is becoming increasingly more difficult, what with all the acting and the pace of the modern game. This is a tribute to these poor, unfortunate souls, that have to withstand verbal abuse from hordes of angry fans every game.

But yeah, sometimes they're just jerks! It's been over a year from the World Cup and I'm still pissed off. The chilean player (in the red shirt) was send off. What the hell? Did the spaniard trip on an ant or something? Stupid ref!

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Also!! A CONTEST!! I once said I would do one if I got over 70 followers--now is the time!

In your comments, tell me what you would like to see me draw. Every day for a week I'll pick one suggestion and I'll do it! I'll also link to your blog. Everybody wins!

Batman and textures

So, here's Batman!

It's a quick sketch made during class, so I couldn't perfect the lines. I keep seeing horrible mistakes as well... but hey, it's a sketch.

(I'l keep telling myself that!)

Soccer Grape

"Hey, can you draw me something?"
"Yeah, sure, what do you need?"
"A grape playing football"
"...what?"
"It's gonna be the mascot for a small tournament, can you draw one?"
"Uh... sure..."

This happened today at class. And that's how this came into fruition (oh, the pun!)

And hey, my tablet got better! No insurance needed, heh.
In the last entry someone asked me how I learned english. My teachers were subtitled sitcoms and videogames! I've never studied english "for reals" (they teach you at school, but it's not that useful). Kinda like how I learned to draw, I'm not an artschool dropout or whatever...

Yet another not so good post

My wacom tablet started to act strange, for some reason. It no longer works for drawing, it doesn't detect the pressure. It's kinda hard to explain if you haven't used one to draw in the computer... but basically, I went into some help forums and it seems that I have to download the latest drives, reset, etc. The usual not-working-hardware stuff. Still, I'm a little scared-- what if it's actually broken? It's been with me for over four years, and it has helped me countless times. Isn't there some sort of insurance for wacom tablets? You see insurance for everything these days, car insurance, houses, hell, even pets! But no wacom tablet insurance? Any digital artist would pay millions for that!

Well, there's warranty and tech support. That works too.

Anyway! Here's the preliminar sketch of a page for a comic that I was thinking I could pitch to a local newspaper. It's called Lautaro Jones and Pedro Peligro ("Lautaro Jones and... Daniel Danger, I guess? Peligro means Danger in english, and I just wanted an alliterative name there-- Lautaro is a typical indigenous name in my country).

So, Lautaro is a reporter and Pedro is his trusted photographer sidekick. Together they report on everything, from car crashes to giant robot attacks. They work on... whatever newspaper agrees to buy this crap, I guess ("Your favourite newspaper", ha!). And they go on fun adventures and whatnot!

Yeah, since Spirou and Tintin are very famous and they're both reporters, I thought that doing something in that vein, but with cartoonier art and more fantastical twists could be interesting.

What do you think?

No real entry - enter sketchbook!

Yikes! Today is my country's independance day, so I haven't had enough time for a real drawing (or sitting on the computer, at all!). Hopefully my sketchbook will suffice!

Yes, this was an excuse to post that tree. I liked it! Also, some sketches for a boxing comic I was planning.
See ya tomorrow, with a better post! Sorry for the brevity!

Really!

BDTC is a great writer, and I was flattered with this entry.
But at the same time....

Last time I use a memetic face reaction, I swear. Lazy copypaste webcomic artists!
Anyway, I was thinking "Me? An ARTIST? Really!"

Do you think that what I do counts as art? I always sort of saw it as cheap entertainment, and I saw myself as a "purveyor of lazy chuckles", not as an artist. What's your take?

I tried to use a color palette inspired by Nedroid Picture Diary. I think it looks nice... wish I could be as funny, though...

And thanks for all the kind comments on my last entry! I wanted to thank personally to many of you, but some didn't have a blog. Really, it means a lot!

BALD! -- a rejected proposal

Well, here's something a little bit different.

A few posts ago I mentioned I was working on a comic book proposal. It was for an international manga contest... the early results came in today, and I didn't make it to the finals. Oh well! Next time, I guess. I'm improving a lot and I can pinpoint a lot of glaring faults on these 8 pages, so I'm confident in my future, haha.

Tell me what you think! This manga is called BALD! and it's read from left to right. Like a regular comic book. Can't figure out how some occidental artist actually manage to draw pages from right to left, that's insane. Here's the original spanish version for those who speak this superior master language.

Open publication - Free publishing - More bald

I tried scribd but for some reason it came out looking funky. Issu is a lot more stable--maybe it has something to do with image compression?

Happy Birthday, Lazarus

I feel so sleepy... this week has been so weird for me! I'll check your comments tomorrow, guys, sorry... I'm yawning as I type.

Anyway, my mom asked me to do a little drawing for a co-worker of her, as they're throwing him a birthday party tomorrow. I obliged, since I couldn't picture what to do today, lol.

Feliz Cumple = Happy B-day (In spanish! Now you know, and knowing is half the battle)

I hope he likes it. His real name isn't Lazarus, that's just a nickname. My mom tried to tell me the story of why they call him that but I got bored pretty quickly as it didn't involve anyone coming back from the grave.

See ya around!

Polka Master!

Yay! Weird Al! We all love Mr. Yankovic here, don't we?

What's your favourite Weird Al song? I'm partial to Smells Like Nirvana and Polka Power, but there's just so much funny stuff he has done...! He's actually a pretty good musician on his own, the way he can change styles to compose more effective parodies is mindblowing.

Just for the sake of curiosity, here's the original sketch on my notebook:

You can tell I fixed some mistakes and also added a few extra details. Working digitally has a lot of advantages.

Also: Over 60 followers! I'm really happy guys, this is history in the making! When I reach 70 I'll have to do a small contest, I guess... hehehe...

Spirou, adventurer extraordinaire

Well, if you didn't knew who Tintin was (in the last entry) I highly doubt you'll even have a clue about this guy! You may have watched the cartoon as a kid, perhaps...?

Basically, this guy is a reporter for a magazine, and he and his pal go in adventures around the globe. Yes, just like Tintin! French comic artists seem to love themselves some adventurer reporters.

EDIT: Yes, he's wearing a bellhop uniform. On his first adventures, he worked in a hotel, and even after he stopped working there it remained as his "classic" uniform. Like Donald Duck, that guy wears a sailor's outfit all the time and no one bats an eye!

I like the comicbook a lot! I haven't seen it in english, though... only in spanish and french. But here's a few translated pages, hopefully you can understand why I like it! The art and the writing are really funny and the characters seem to leap out of the page!

When I ink on the computer, my lines tend to come very even. That kinda diminishes all attempts at "movement and liveness" in drawings like these... perhaps I should just go back to traditional art for a few days.

Tintin

Hi! I'm sorry for the lateness, and for my total dissapeareance today. I tried my best to upload on time, but I had a few college related things to attend to. Oh well!

Here's Tintin. A franco-belgian comic book classic, Tintin was a reporter that travelled around the world and got into many adventures, alongside his pals (Captain Haddock and... eh, I don't know the english names for the gang!). He's also getting a movie now, helmed by Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg! I love the comics, so I can only cross my fingers and hope for the best. I don't really like the way the characters look, the eyes look kinda... dead, I don't know. But that happens to me with every "realistic" CGI movie (Polar Express was downright terrifying).

I wanted to fix his collar. Where did that black spot came from? But anyway, I'll rather upload this now. Otherwise I'll keep getting later and later...
See ya tomorrow! And thanks for all your comments!

Run, fatty, run!

Well, I don't wanna sound mean. But it's true: running and jogging are incredibly simple excercises (and you don't have to pay!) that yield great results.

Besides this is yet another attempt at understanding transparent PNGs. Heavy compression really affects these things... I'm glad I could make it smaller this time around (267 kb against yesterday's image, which was over 500 kb).

Sorry I couldn't post a comic, like I said in my last post! As a way of making amends, here's a comic I made last year for a friend. It's made with actual paper and actual ink, I miss that dearly...

Angry, not "agry". I haven't fixed that in a year, I ain't gonna do it now!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel a bit more creative. See ya!

Dan Hibiki, the GOAT

GOAT is a term, usually seen in sports, that means "Greatest Of All Time"

And of course, there's no greater Street Fighter character than Dan Hibiki! Everyone loves Street FIghter, and everyone loves Dan Hibiki.

This is also an experiment with transparent PNGs, hopefully it looks right.

More comics tomorrow, I hope... the last one was sort of cheating, as it had no backgrounds!

Jimmy Olsen, Superman's bro

So, I did a one page comic thing.

(Hopefully it looks right, my monitor sucks big time at coloring!)

It's about Jimmy Olsen and Superman! They're real bros.
For those of you that don't know about Jimmy, he's one of the few real friends of Supes . He works as photographer at The Daily Planet, alongside Lois Lane and Clark Kent. He's also pretty young and brave, always getting into weird adventures and bizarre situations trying to help his buddy.

And yes, Superman totally forced him to marry a Gorilla once. And I'm pretty sure Jimmy tried to kill him under hypnosis at least once, but can't find the issue. Old comics are weird (and insanely fun).

But yeah, in those old stories he's more like Superman's servant or his son, not his Pal. So this is sort of how I picture them both hanging out, like friends do.

Compare this finished comic to the sketch I uploaded last entry-- pretty big change, huh?

Perhaps I should offer commissioned comics as well?

Spider-man

Unrelated note: THANKS FOR ALL THE VIEWS AND COMMENTS YESTERDAY
You guys are awesome!

I'm doing commissions now, as well! Check this page for details. Since it's something that involves money, I decided to go ahead and also add a privacy policy page.

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Spidey! Everyone's favourite hero! Excited for the reboot of the movie series? Can't say I pictured direct sequels happening anymore...

I'm sorry for the lateness (30 min past midnight, give or take) of my so-called "daily sketch blog"... to be honest, today I wanted to upload something different:

It was a comic strip! Sadly I couldn't finish it on time. Oh well... tomorrow, I hope.

Dino Neymar

"Neymar is a jerk"
"No way, Neymar is a total bro"
"Are you kidding? Neymar is an idiot!"
"You're just jealous! He's confident, not a jerk!"

Ah, Neymar. Brazilian striker, pretty young (19 years old), and with the most implaussible haircut this side of a japanese pop star.
So, is he a total jerk? Can't vouch for it, since I don't know the guy, but then you hear stuff like this... I'll rather give him the benefit of doubt.

Anyway! This Dino Neymar, a dinosaur-powered version of the footballing sensation! It was created by GM Soccer Picks, who in a stroke of genius decided to stuck dinosaur parts into a picture of Neymar and BAM, a legend was born!
Be sure to check his blog out, there's a lot of Dino Neymar comics, all wonderfully bizarre.

A Half-Dinosaur football player would do wonders to make the sport more popular in the USA, I think. I know a lot of people would pay to see that.

Self Portrait

I think I'm going to start using this as my online avatar.

I'm wearing a Boca Juniors t-shirt, I love that team. Which makes me a hypocrite, I guess (Picture an American liking the Toronto Blue Jays) but whatever.

Thanks for all the visits and comments!

I hope to start uploading some mini comics soon, I like doing those but they take longer than just illustrations.

Super Mario

Not much to say today. Everyone likes videogames, right? Excited about the new Super Mario Land?

This blog has definitely pushed me forward. I can draw and paint a lot faster nowadays!
And I need a new monitor. This one doesn't seem to show me all the colors correctly. Oh, well!

Go, Chilean Students!

Oh crap, I´m sorry. I hate political cartoons, as I love funny cartoons and despise anything that tarnish that fun, from nasty network executives to politics.

But this is a big deal. At least in my country.

In Chile most people have to take a loan if they want to study. That's because college here is really expensive when you relate it to our salaries-- around 300-600 USD monthly in a country were the minimum wage is like 250 USD and most complete families make around 1200 USD.

I mean, what if you have two kids going to college? What if your family is too poor to support you, but not poor enough to get you a good scholarship? You go to the bank. And if you take a loan for college, you can forget about buying a house in the next +15 years.

So now both highschool and college students are in the middle of a nationwide strike. They're asking for free, quality education -- promises that every single president seems to make and no one has fulfilled yet. Kinda sad considering we're the only nation in Latin America that has to pay in order to get into a State University.

I go to a private university? I don't know if that term exists in english. It's not as prestigious as regular college (by a long shot, we used to be a Professional Institute but officialy became a univesity just a few years ago), but at least I don't get ripped off, I get a Professional Title and the facilities are great. So we didn't join the strike, which was cool for me, but it sucked big time for the kids that waned to study other career in some University, like our future doctors and lawyers. This drawing is sort of a tribute to those guys, as they really showed some serious guts risking their school year for their convictions.

Luckily the pressure forced the goverment to lower the... lending rate? (stupid hard to translate phrases!) for student loans, so now things are a little bit easier. But meh, that's just one measure IMHO-- I'm happy for it but we all know that's not why you go into strike!

(And also-- I learned how to use halftone dots on my digital art! That's a handy tool)

Sorry for the boring rant! By the way, I'm thinking about doing commisions, as I would like to buy a domain name (face it, sketches-and-other-stuff.blogspot.com doesn't really roll of your tongue!). Those are about 10 USD a year-- do you know anyone who would be interested in getting a drawing? And how much do you think I could charge for my kind of drawings? I'm open to suggestions!

Green Lantern

Have you seen the movie? I haven't yet, but it's something I'll get to eventually.

I've always loved superheroes, since I was a kid. But I've gotta admit, nowadays superhero comics tend to be really boring, most of the time. Starting from the 80's, there was a lot of emphasis on "gritty" and "realism" and all that crap. Let's take a moment to remember these are stories about people beating other people senseless while wearing pijamas.

Anyway, Green Lantern! Like many superheroes in the 90's, he was up for a rehaul. Hal Jordan died (he got better), and the new Green Lantern was Kyle Rayner, a twenty-something comic book artist.

I loved the concept! The Green Lantern Ring basically can create any structure you're thinking of at the minute, so in the hands of an artist it was a great tool. Kyle was young, he looked up to other superheroes and while a little scared by the situation he quickly became a valuabe part of the Green Lantern Corps.

I always tought it was hilarious that he looked so fit. Believe me, I've known a lot of comic book artists and none were as ripped as this guy. Perhaps the moment you wear tight clothing in the superhero universe you grow up muscles like crazy!

And also: Thanks for all the visits and comments! This whole thing started as an experiment and a test to myself, but having you guys following me makes me feel even more motivated to draw every day.

Take care, everyone! See you tomorrow!

Chile 2, Spain 3

I'm guessing that, since most of my visitors come from the USA, not many of you knew that today Chile (my country) played a friendly soccer match against Spain, current world champions.
We took the lead, and before you knew it we were winning 2x0. Amazing! No one expected that. A little southamerican country beating the footballing elite.

And then, on the second half...

We were winning. 2x0. And they catched up. And then, at the last minute, they won.

WHY.

HOW COULD WE CHOKE LIKE THAT.

We're like the England of South America. Great team, lots of potential, always a strong contender, but we flop at the worst of times.

Oh well. At least I could draw something out of it.

(By the way, someone asked me on the comments what software I use--most of the time I do the lines on Mangastudio EX4, and color either in Photoshop or Paint Tool SAI. Today I inked by hand, and it doesn't look that bad, but my scanner is pretty lousy, so...)

EDIT: For some reason the drawing looks horribly pixelated on full size. However, when you download the full size to your computer, and open it, it looks normal. What gives?

Link - The Hero of Blogging

Haha, I almost didn't do my daily entry on time.
I'm not satisfied at all with this one, sadly. I've still got a lot of learning to do. it looks halfway decent, I guess.

The colors always look a little bit too saturated when I look at my pictures on the browser. It doesn't bother me with cartoons, but this time it did, so I had to upload a new slightly desaturated file. Probably it has something to do with CMYK/RGB conversion or whatever.

And I still can't draw in this style! I'm too cartoony, I guess.

Waiting anxiously for the new Zelda, it looks really good! I like the cartoony art style! what a surprise!