cute character

Vampire Cat illustration, with GIMP step-by-step tutorial

By The Illustrator | 2010/03/19 19:38 Posted in GIMP, GIMP, Graphics Tablet, Illustration, Illustration Friday, Tutorials, cute character | Comments (0)

Yum! Packed Lunch!

Although I am far from finished with my troublesome Pixie Catcher fantasy illustration, I’m going to put it on hold for a day because it is Illustration Friday time again. As regular readers of this blog will know – and yes this blog does seem to have regular readers – Illustration Friday is what is known as an art challenge website . This means that every week they post a word, and the online artistic community (i.e. everybody) is invited to create an illustration based on that word. This week’s word is “ expired”.

Probably inspired by the famous Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch…

Mr. Praline: ‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

( more about the sketch on Wikipedia)

… the word expired is associated with the death of small animals in my mind, and my first ideas for illustrations were to do with zombie parrots and hamsters.

But then inspiration struck and I thought, “Why not a Vampire cute little animal!”

Why not indeed, technically vampires are the undead rather than expired, but I think the idea still holds.

So I fired up GIMP (as you probably know, GIMP is the leading open-source competitor to Photoshop) and attached my trusty graphics tablet to one of the USB ports on my lappy.

My first sketch was as usual a little off composition-wise, but that was easy to fix because I had done the sketch on a transparent layer that I added above the background white layer of the image. I simply increased the size of the layer of the sketch until the central part of the image, with the cat, was all that was left showing.

Now the cat is undoubtedly the focus of the image, as competing elements such as the coffin in the foreground have been forced off the edge. I created a second transparent layer and coloured in the cat.

I also coloured in all the other elements of the illustration in the same rough and ready way, using the sketch as a guide and putting each new element on a separate layer. For example the cat’s body, collar, tag, eyes and teeth all get their own layer. With my graphics tablet and the GIMP brush set to a wide radius this is the work of just a few seconds.

When this process of colouring is far enough along it is possible to just delete the layer of the image file with the sketch on, because it isn’t needed any more.

Because the image is an illustration of a vampire it is almost inevitably a night time picture. To make a nice night sky I have put silhouettes of trees on one layer, a blend from orange to invisible on a layer behind that, then a moon, then a duplicate of the moon on a new layer smudged and with the opacity turned down to make it shine, then behind that a layer with stars and behind that a layer of solid dark blue.

Then to add more character to my character I added a new layer to paint shadows onto the cat, and yet another layer to give it eyelids. As the image is becoming more finished I also dropped the png file I have of my signature into GIMP by dragging and dropping, GIMP then did all the hard work of importing it into the image on a separate layer for me, yippee!

Now where into the phase of adding detail and tidying up. Here I have added some bumpiness to the soil, and I’ve tidied up the lower edges of the grave stones in the background of the illustration. This process of tidying up and adding detail to the image could potentially go on for a long, long time, and it really is a matter of taste as to where you draw the line and say, “ This is a finished illustration!”

I hope you like the Vampire Cat.

Digital Fantasy Painting with pixies using gimp

By The Illustrator | 2010/03/17 15:16 Posted in GIMP, GIMP, Graphics Tablet, Illustration, Tutorials, cute character | Comments (1)

I’m working on another digital painting right now, as usual, with GIMP and my Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet. I have spent a couple of evenings on it, something like eight hours in all, and it looks about half done to me. I am still trying desperately to take my images in a cuter direction, and so I decided to paint an image with pixies in it. It is going to be called The Pixie Catcher when it is finally done.

For people who were not brought up in the UK being read Enid Blyton stories at bed time, a pixie is a fairy like creature, sometimes thought of as being blue. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about pixies.

All I have decided about the pixies in my illustration so far is that they are blue and have wings and a tail. I’ll be adding more detail to them as work on the illustration progresses.

I started work with the largest and most important character in this cute fantasy illustration, the pixie catcher himself. I simply opened GIMP and created a new image (I chose to make it an .xcf file to be able to use all GIMP’s features and save drafts). Then I immediately created a new layer within the image to sketch on, I prefer sketching on a transparent layer, rather than the white background because then I can colour in underneath the sketch more easily. I like to sketch freehand with no reference material, like photographs or thumbnails, because the image always seems more spontaneous and real to me when little or no planning has gone into it. It does mean that I sometimes have some problems to solve as I go on though, but that just adds to the fun.

I liked the way the sketch was going and added more and more detail to the character, adding pointy ears to make him look more like a fantasy creature.

Next I turned my attention to imagining the sort of fantasy world where this image might be set. I have been imagining a fantasy world which might end up being called Spiral Land. There would of course be a lot of spirals and, as you can see here, even the branches of the trees might be more spiraly than usual. I have turned the layer with the main character off, by clicking on the eye icon, so that I can concentrate on the background.

As you can see in this screen shot of the GIMP interface that in the layers window only the forest sketch and the background are enabled with the eye icon.

I then switched the layer with the main character back on and created a new layer below it to add some colour to him.

I then added a couple of pixies flying away from the main character as fast as their wings can carry them. To make the image cuter I had the idea that the trees would be helping the fairies to escape, so I altered the image to have one of the branches curling around the main character’s hat to try to stop him. It’s quite a subtle change, and I might have to add more branches helping the pixies to make this idea more obvious.

Here I have started to add some shadows to the image, you can see the change best on the character’s face. Shadows are really easy to add in GIMP, and they really bring the image to life. Simply create a new layer above the thing you want to add shadows to. Paint the shadows roughly in a dark colour, but turn down the opacity of the layer, using the slider at the top of the layer window. The lines and areas you paint will transform from solid colour to the merest hint of a shadow at low opacity, or quite heavy shadows at high opacity. You can make the edges of the shadows less sharp with the smudge tool, and when you are happy with the effect just right click on the shadow layer and chose the merge down option to add the shadows to your object.

Apart from a few edits like changing the shape of the hat, adding spirals to the main character’s collar and resizing the image to zoom in more on the scene the only difference between this image and the one before is layer after layer of shadows and a lot of time. Although I have also switched off and deleted the layers with the original sketches on because I don’t really need them any more. Now I’m more painting than drawing, but still using the same GIMP tools and my graphics tablet, the best 60 euros I ever spent.

I’m starting to like this image and I’ll be doing more work on it soon. I’ll post the final image here on the blog as soon as it’s done.

Digital painting of a rabbit down a hole, in GIMP, step by step

By The Illustrator | 2010/03/12 17:31 Posted in GIMP, GIMP, Graphics Tablet, Illustration, Illustration Friday, Tutorials, cute character | Comments (0)

subterranean rabbit picture, GIMP

Illustration Friday time has once more rolled around and this time the art challenge site has set the word “subterranean” as our source of inspiration. I immediately thought of a space underground, but at the same time, I am conscious that my images of late have all tended towards the creepy, and I wanted to mix up the mood with something more cute.

I decided that although the image would have an underground setting, it would have a cute rabbit as its main character.

So of course step one was to attach my Wacom “ Bamboo Pen” Graphics tablet, I must admit I am slightly in love with this gadget, and it’s great to have it working under Ubuntu at last. I also opened GIMP and started a new image. The first thing I did was add a new transparent layer to the image, and I started sketching on that. It makes it so much easier to colour in when the lines float on top of the picture and you can colour in below. It’s impossible to colour over the lines!

Next I started colouring in the image, I wanted to avoid any trace of the sinister in this image and have the rabbit be extremely cute, so I roughly tried to suggest its shape with a very bright blue. All the different elements of the GIMP image are of course on different layers, and I am using the “save for web” add on to quickly produce these low data thumb nails to illustrate this post.

As I was adding more detail, and colouring in more of the elements of the picture, I decided that the rabbit should actually be reading his fortune, I have no idea why, it just seemed more interesting I guess. So I increased the size of the table in front of the subject of the image and painted in some cards, free hand, like everything else in the image.

I was quite pleased with the way the image was progressing but I had my usual issue of too many dissimilar colours lying on the image like a pizza topping. To solve this problem I painted a layer of solid brown, dark brown, as the top layer of the image. Then I turned the transparency of this layer down until I could see the elements of the image through this top brown layer. It immediately pulled all the different colourful elements together into one unified image.

Then I used the eraser tool to cut holes in this layer for the door and window, and edges that would be caught in the beams of light coming through them. It had a very dramatic effect.

Then I resized the image, I used the scalpel tool from the GIMP toolbox, and darkened only the layer with our card player on, using the brightness contrast tool from the colours menu. I think it already works as an image, after just two, or three hours work, but I’m probably going to be adding finishing touches such as images on the faces of the cards and a picture within the frame hanging on the wall. We’ll see.

Digital Painting a cover illustration with bleed for my CreativeSpace book, in Photoshop, Tutorial stage 2

By The Illustrator | 2009/12/31 00:52 Posted in Editorial, Graphics Tablet, Illustration, Photoshop, cute character | Comments (0)

Last time we saw this image it looked like this. It’s the very first design sketch with only the most important elements, placed in the guide psd provided by CreateSpace, and a few colours. I have put each element on a separate layer. The cat’s on one layer and the sky on another, and I’m ready to go. And I can already see the first problem with the composition, the title is getting a bit lost.

To make the title easier to read I shrank the mirror using Photoshop’s free transform, so that the title doesn’t have to be written over it. Having the mirror on a separate layer makes shrinking and moving it a whole lot easier. I also darkened the title by painting over the typed text. This gave the text a darker more hand painted and interesting look. I painted each letter on a separate layer to give me the option of shrinking, growing, twisting and moving them to make the text in the digital painting even more organic and interesting.

The landscape behind the cat was looking a little empty so I added some grass, trees and mountains to the midground and background of the image. I also worked a little on the cat to make it a little smoother and less sketchy. There is a long way to go with the cat, but every little helps.

Next I sketched in some clouds very roughly with the graphics pad stylus – I’m doing pretty much everything on this image using just Photoshop and my inexpensive little Bamboo fun graphics tablet. To make these white hatched lines look more like clouds I just poked at them a little bit with the smudge tool. It’s quite effective, in this detail from the illustration the left of the cloud is smudged and the right is still scratchy white hatching lines created with the graphics tablet.

Next I worked on the trees. I created a layer beneath the initial sketches and added colour to make the trees a little more real looking. I also did some more work on the cat. The cat is going to be the focus of this image and little by little I’m going to be doing dabs of work on it until it’s done. This latest stage of the illustration took a couple of hours and I’m going to be coming back for a few more hours work on it real soon.

Self-Publishing and Distribution of Books, Video and Music On-Demand is the way to go, for me books!

By The Illustrator | 2009/12/29 21:36 Posted in Editorial, Illustration, Photoshop, Review, Website, cute character | Comments (0)

Hold the front page! I just found the coolest website, and I’m not talking about FarmVille, although that is pretty cool. No, I’m talking about CreateSpace: Self-Publish and Distribute Your Books, Video and Music On-Demand which is an Amazon.com website.

I’ve been painting my digital illustrations and writing my stories for some time now; sometimes science fiction, sometimes children’s picture books, but always with only my blog here at Starbright as a creative outlet. But CreateSpace seems like it might be an easy, low-maintenance way to get really published, on paper, in a good old-fashioned book. They provide a free ISBN number, they provide templates to download and follow when creating your book and there is a forum of lovely like-minded creative types right there on the site for support.

So today has been a lot of fun, I created an account with CreateSpace, for free, and downloaded a template so I could get going and make the cover for “I Am Spiralcat”, a children’s picture book. Me and my girlfriend have had the idea for this children’s picture book for some time, and it has come close to being published a couple of times, but this seems the perfect way to take control of the project ourselves.

There have been some frustrations too today though. CreateSpace provide a nice template in png format for GIMP or psd format for Photoshop, and anyone who has been reading this blog for any length of time will be able to predict that my first instinct was to use GIMP to create my image. Unfortunately GIMP just wasn’t up to it. It was verrry verrry slowwww indeed. I tried as hard as I could, because I do love it so, but whatever I did, it just couldn’t handle the huge, high-resolution image that you have to create. Just changing the transparency of a layer took ten minutes, and when I messed with the preferences to give GIMP more RAM and turned off all the thumbnails it took, nine minutes to calculate the same transparency change. So I was forced to use Photoshop CS3.

Photoshop has behaved impeccably and hardly seems to notice the hugely inflated size of the file, the pen on my graphics tablet lags a bit sometimes and the file takes a few seconds longer than normal to save, but that’s about it. Apparently the new version of GIMP with it’s non destructive editing and other such technical marvels will be able to compete, but until then I’ll be using Photoshop to create my children’s picture book for CreateSpace and Amazon, and GIMP only for smaller low res images for the website.

I’ll be posting my progress with the illustrations for the book, with all their unique challenges and fun features, and of course I’ll be digital painting the odd spaceship in GIMP from time to time too.

Quick sketch with Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet and GIMP for Illustration friday

By The Illustrator | 2009/12/04 19:21 Posted in GIMP, Graphics Tablet, Illustration, cute character | Comments (2)

Here we go again, another week, another illustration. This week the art challenge word on Illustration Friday is, “Crunchy”. I’ve noticed that to get the most visitors and comments from Illustration Friday it’s a good idea to post your art, actually on Friday. And that means for obscure words like this week’s art challenge word, where there isn’t a picture you prepared earlier hanging about on the hard drive, that means creating an image very quickly.

Outside of Illustration Friday my art tends to be considered images put painstakingly together over the course of weeks in such applications as Inkscape the open source vector illustration app and Blender the suite of professional-level open source 3D tools. My latest Blender project – a spaceship in 3D with a detailed interior – has been under construction for some weeks now and there is little chance of it being finally done anytime soon.

So for Illustration Friday I choose an entirely different method of creating images. I open Gimp (just as good as Photoshop if you ask me, and totally free, just like the other two apps) and attach my graphics tablet to my PC, my Wacom Bamboo tablet is still very new and I love it a lot. I then quickly sketch out and complete whatever the first idea was that jumped into my head when I saw the challenge word. This week the first idea that sprung to mind was a very hungry fish crunching away on a bag full of nachos that the kind owner has thrown into the tank.

The next big challenge of course is to get the art uploaded in a post on my blog and make sure the Illustration Friday link works, but even including all that the whole process probably doesn’t take more than a couple of hours. A very immediate and raw technique – and this week the results look, to my eye, a little like a spray painting on a wall.

Monster Sketch done in GIMP with a Wacom Graphics Tablet

By The Illustrator | 2009/12/03 23:42 Posted in Editorial, GIMP, Illustration, cute character | Comments (0)

I’m still considering about which direction to go in with the inhabitants of the spaceship bar I designed in Blender.

Right now the inhabitants of the spaceship bar are all pretty much humanoid, and that’s all well and good, but then I suddenly thought about making them more alien and monstrous. I grabbed my Bamboo graphics tablet, jammed it in the USB port – I had to install the drivers all over again, which was odd – and then opened GIMP.

I’m trying to use the GIMP illustration software instead of Photoshop as much as possible now, I’m totally into the open source, free software thing. For my present needs GIMP is doing everything that I used to need Photoshop for and it doesn’t cost a penny. It makes the constant upgrading and cash investment of the Adobe world look a little ridiculous to be honest.

I’m really enjoying being able to jot down my ideas and try out designs directly in GIMP without having to pause and scan them in.

It’s great to see these quick designs instantly on the computer screen. After having a look at this one for instance it doesn’t strike me as the sort of alien that would be hanging around in a spaceship bar. I think it’s more the sort of wild little alien that might be encountered planet side in a strange jungle or alien forest.

It might even be a candidate for some kind of comic strip about alien high jinks, or some other more light-hearted kind of illustration. It reminds me of the Moonbugs online comic strips I was doing a little while ago. I might just have to start doing something like that again…

Inkscape Vector Image with True Outlines • Cartoon Look • for Illustration Friday

By The Illustrator | 2009/11/29 15:17 Posted in Illustration, Inkscape, cute character | Comments (0)

The word on Illustration Friday this week is entangled, and I have created an Entangled Elephants illustration. You can see stage 1 of this Inkscape vector image here.

I am still starting out with Inkscape, but it really is intuitive and fun to use. Creating these nice cartoon outlines was simple. I just copied the elephant that needed an outline stroked the elephant beneath and tugged on the Bezier curves to make it a bit more irregular and cartoony. I was inspired to this method for outlines, rather than regular path stroking by this forum thread Creating true outlines • Topic • InkscapeForum.com. It seems this is something people re always doing, and it’s a routine task in Inkscape.

The image has nice flat areas of colour, something that Inkscape does superbly. In fact it’s a lot of fun with a pen and tablet to tease out a line, adjusting the bezier curves by dragiing on them as you go. It becomes quite intuaive after a while, and some quite free-hand-looking shapes can be created as the work becomes quicker, like the cloud in the background of this illustration.

I think the image is quite close to something that I could call complete, but I must admit that I’m tempted to fire up the GIMP, get my Bamboo Pen graphics tablet out and have a go scratching away at this image to give it a bit more interest. I could add some structure to the elephants at the foreground of the image, or perhaps work on the sky in the background and give it some interest to match what’s going on in the grass.

(edit)

entangled_elephants_outlines_and_shading

So here is that image with a little bit of hatching here and there.

First Stages of a Space Cat in Inkscape, for later use in Blender.

By The Illustrator | 2009/11/28 01:09 Posted in Illustration, Inkscape, cute character | Comments (0)

I am a big fan of Illustration Friday, which is an “art challenge website” where a new word is posted every week and used as a source of inspiration by artists around the world. Some of my illustrations have received excellent feedback, such as last weeks Photoshop and Bamboo Tablet illustration of the word “music”. I’ve become more and more engaged with the idea over the last couple of years, to the point that now I rarely miss posting my illustration each week.

I was waiting for the Illustration Friday word to switch and give me an excuse to start doing some work, but it didn’t change. It usually changes on Friday, makes sense I guess, but this Friday nada. Well not nada, the old word is still there.

So I decided to look for other illustration related sites, and I found

LCSV4 The Illustration News Portal which has a really nice logo, and it links to a bunch of good and inspirational images from illustrators sites. The really nice logo makes all the difference if you ask me, without it, the site might look like a really ordinary aggregator.

The image accompanying this post (it’s going to be an alien cat in a spacesuit when it’s complete) was made with Inkscape (like Adobe Illustrator – but free!!), and I’m gradually getting to grips with this app. The more I learn about it the more I like it. It’s so easy to get super clean and super professional-looking lines.

Ah the challenge word switched, now it’s “entangled”, hmm…