This week I experimented with sketching with color. No pencil sketch to start with, I just jumped into Photoshop and started exploring shapes. You can see the full video here:

And here is the finished art. I could certainly spend some more time adding details, but the most important stuff is here.

If you watched this artcast the other day, you probably saw me working on this a bit. Anyway, here’s some of the ink work I’ve done for page 1 of Rainmagic. I’ve got the majority of pages 2 and 3 inked as well, but I want o finish them up a bit more before I post them. Still have to add in word bubbles and the title. I’ll probably also do some touch up. The figure in the mid-ground isn’t showing up enough (see if you can spot her!).

I continued the work form last week, designing and painting an exclusive Green Monk print for the upcoming MoCCA festival. We also had a visit from fellow concept artist Xavier Garcia and had a chance to talk about art, comics and all sorts of stuff.

Here’s the beginning sketch followed by the in-progress painting. Still much work to do to figure this thing out.

Live TV : Ustream

Stuff mentioned in the show:

The Visual Story, Second Edition: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Media

Project Waldo

Bernie Fuchs

Well I finally decided to sit down and start inking Rainmagic. It was my first time inking a comic page with a brush, so I was a little nervous. I think it turned out okay. A couple of spots that were sketchy, but for the most part things went well. You can watch the full video below.

Stuff mentioned in the show:

Claire Wendling’s awesome art.

The Pentel Color Brush.

Tonight I started on a project for my wife and her two sisters. They run a blog called wabisabi mama that’s all about being a mothers and celebrating their Japanese heritage. They’re redesigning the blog and they asked me to illustrate a couple of Kokeshi doll versions of themselves to go in the new header.

I started with these quick sketches.

Here’s the full video:

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

And here’s the still-in-process artwork. They asked me to put them into Kimonos instead of temporary clothing. I’ve still got to add one kokeshi and their kokeshi children.

You can download the PSD for you perusal here.

Had a ton of fun doing some digital painting tonight for the artcast. I demoed my custom brush set and did a digital painting of Aang from Avatar The Last Airbender.

Here’s the full video:

And here is the final piece:

If you’re interested, you can still get the custom brushes by signing up the Whistling Cloud Newsletter in the sidebar.

The monitor mount that I use for my Cintiq is a combination of these two mounts:

So I’ve been getting periodic emails asking what’s the best way to know when I release a new comic or print or something. I usually recommend that they follow me on twitter, but I’ve been trying to come up with a more effective way to do this that’s less work for those of you that are interested.

That’s why today I’m launching the Whistling Cloud Newsletter. It’ll be an email newsletter that I’ll send out periodically (monthly, at most) with updates on my latest work, my convention schedule, and special discounts in the store.

To start things off right, I’m giving away my set of custom Photoshop brushes to everyone that signs up for the newsletter. You can see me use many of these brushes here and here. I’ll also be doing a special demo of these brushes tonight on my Weekly Artcast.

In addition to the custom brush set, 5 random subscribers will get the print of their choice from the store.

So sign up for the newsletter in the sidebar, get the brushes and come check out how to use them at the Artcast. I’m excited to put the brushes out there and see how you like them.

Be sure to tell me what you think.

Here’s the latest Artcast. Using a modification on a coloring technique I learned over at Ben Caldwell’s forum. It’s the same technique I used to do all of these illustrations:

It seems to be the technique that I always use for pinups. Go figure. Anyway here was the end result of tonight’s artcast:

You can see the full process video below:

Stuff mentioned in the video:

Don Seegmiller

Boo hoo. I forgot to record last Monday’s Artcast. Fortunately, I can still show you what I did. This is a continuation of the painting I started here.

Adding more texture and tone to the face. Working out the eyes.

Adding in a background. The wallpaper pattern is a custom brush I built then varied its alignment and duplicated it across the background.

Adding noise and texture to the background. The texture is a hi-res custom brush.

Adding a flame to the background and some color variation on the wall. Also painting in some reflected light on the suit

The finishing touch.

Voila! Apologies for not recording this. I’m going to be doing a whole different approach to coloring at the Artcast Network screening room, tomorrow night at 9 pm EST. Hopefully that’ll make up for it.

See you there!

Doing a little bit of digital painting for the artcast today.  You can see the full 2 hour painting here:

Or see the condensed progress below.

The original sketch.

Flating in the colors.

Adding line work.

Adding gradients to the shapes.

Painting in shadows.

Adding texture.

Still a bit more work to do to finish this up. Tune in next week to see the completed piece.

Stuff mentioned in the show:

Adobe Photoshop Custom Brush Techniques with David Levy

Practical Light and Color.

Hans Bacher Here’s his blog. Contact him and see if he can tell you where you can buy his brush library. There’s some great stuff in there.