Cat Cartoon

Cat cartoon. Lineart done with Inkscape

I’d done a pencil sketch of that cat quite some time ago. Now I’m doing a lineart drawing with Inkscape based on that pencil drawing. It is mostly done, but there are still some places which have to be refined.

I really have to discipline myself – to take the necessary time and avoid sloppiness. After all the lineart drawing will be the basis for all following steps. But the strange thing is, just having it on the screen in Inkscape didn’t show me the flaws. Now, that the drawing is uploaded and I am writing these lines, I see them only too clearly. Well…

Bat creature

Bat creature. Digital painting with Inkscape, Artrage and Photoshop

Yes, I used all three programs – Inkscape for the lineart (based on a pencil sketch), Artrage for the colouring and photoshop for the background. I painted on a green layer with a brush in the shape of leaves in various shades of green.

I also used the painting – without background – as design for my Zazzle products. One of them you can see here:

Tree and Lake – coloured

Tree and Lake. Digital Painting September 2013

I finished this painting on the last weekend. It took some time until I called it “finished” and let it go.

I find it extremely difficult to stop working on a digital painting because it is so easy to make changes. But there is a real danger of overdoing it, of adding strokes which should not have been added.

I had never done landscape lineart with Inkscape before which I then coloured in Artrage. But I must say that I quite like this painting – the sky, the various shades of brown on the tree and the colours of the lake. It makes me want to repeat the process – of course with another subject.

Fall designs

Today is the beginning of fall, and the days are now getting shorter than the nights. But autumn or fall has its qualities too – with all the leaves changing into wonderful colours.

Here are some of my products which reflect the colour explosion of fall. The design was created with a photoshop brush.

Fall leaves Thanksgiving Postcard by ullahennig
Design Full color post cards at zazzle

The Colors of Fall Cork Coaster by ullahennig
Create your own custom coaster on zazzle.

Fall Leaves Wrapping Paper by ullahennig
See gift wrap online at zazzle.com

Landscape with tree and lake – sketch

Tree with lake. Ballpoint pen.

This is a rather rough sketch done with a black ballpoint pen. It will serve as the basis for the next digital painting. It shows a tree without leaves on the right side, standing at the shore of the lake, with some hills /rocks / mountains added.

I will import the image into Inkscape and hope to get a decent line drawing which then will be the basis for the digital painting in Artrage. I will document the steps here on my blog.

Horse – Digital Painting

Horse profile

Several steps were necessary for this digital painting:

• sketching with a traditional pencil
• inking the scanned sketch in Inkscape. I had to get familiar with Inkscape again which was not too difficult. However, I’ll definitely change the thickness of the strokes the next time. Mostly they are at 2px, which is way too thin,
• exporting the outlined sketch into artrage. When I did this I exported the whole image instead of selecting the head of the horse and exporting the selected part of the image.
• Because of that I wondered about the small size of the head in Artrage. I used the airbrush, the marker and the oil brush tool. The airbrush tool is nice for shading, but you have to be careful to have soft and hard edges on the painting. I finally used the eraser to clean up along the lines, but because I knew that I wouldn’t get any colour spots I exported the image into photoshop, put the painting on a dark background and thus was able to see all the tiny wee spots that were left.

Inkscape and photoshop doodle

Playing with Inkscape again

I didn’t plan that. Suddenly I felt like doing graphics with Inkscape again – the open source software which is an alternative for everyone who doesn’t want to pay the money which you have to pay when you want to buy Adobe Illustrator. I think the starting point was that I read in one of the blogs I am following that there will be a new version of Inkscape coming soon. This reminded me that I’ve got an older version which I haven’t worked with for months.

The first thing was that I wanted to find out whether I did still know how to work with Inkscape. It took some time, but then my knowledge which had been buried somewhere in my mind came back, and I began to play. It was fun but also time consuming, so I asked myself why not create something which could be used as a pattern on some Zazzle products?

The result of the whole process which also included working with different layers in photoshop, you can see above. Nothing revolutionary or breath-taking, I know. But it pleases my eye…

Photoshop Painting tips – video tutorial

Xia taptara’s You tube channel is a wonderful resource for everyone who’s interested in digital painting with photoshop. In this video he shows 5 ways to find darker color or shadow:

You can find other video art tutorials here and here.

The chap with the cap

The chap with the cap – PITT Artist Pen and Photoshop

I’d done this chap as a quick sketch on last Sunday and had intended to digitally colour him. But my colleagues decided to give me a voucher for an art store as birthday present, and I bought six Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens Big Brush. When I came home from work yesterday, I had to try them, so I coloured the chap, scanned the drawing into photoshop and enhanced it a bit.

I used the backside of an already printed copy paper and I was surprised that there was no bleeding. I have to try some sketch paper with the Artist Pen still. I am looking forward to that!

Green eyed Faun

Green eyed faun. Digital painting

Here you can see the finished version of the creature which I talked about in my last post. I decided to call the creature a faun – half goat (the horns!) and half human. Those fauns are not really bad creatures, but they like to play practical jokes to humans.