Red Five Standing by

Okay, I decided to try this. I am going to try and post a couple times during the week and possibly a little post on the weekend. It's not that I am tired of posting stuff, I just want you to have some quality stuff. I will try an artwork post and a toy post and I am not sure what on the weekend maybe an art toy post : )

This will be the art post for the week. I love reading other artist's blogs where they show a little behind the curtain, a sketch, a technique here and there. I have been trying a few things out, trying to nail down some processes. This one is not going to be that in depth, mater of fact you might think "big deal" but none the less it is something I tried and was pretty happy with the results.

I have come across an iPad and while we mainly use it to look up recipes or watch YouTube videos of Basset Hounds and Bulldogs doing crazy stuff, I did load Sketchbook Pro on it for the occasional doodle. I haven't had that much luck doing wonderful sketches on it. To be honest the last time I did a finger painting I was a wee little lad, but one Sunday morning over coffee I did whip up this little colored sketch.



I am pretty proud of it. As drawings go it's not high quality or a rush it to press type drawing, but it does beat my usual scribble all to hell. I even tried out the layers to add some colors. Then I thought hey! Let's take it and email it to the main machine and finish it up in Illustrator! Sketchbook even exported with all my layers intact and in a PSD file format, sweet.

So here is what I did in illustrator.
edit: The shading was done back in Photoshop.



Like I said, no ground breaking tips or tricks, more of a "hey I can use this thing to draw with my fingers and then clean it up later" sort of thing. I usually use Photoshop to sketch out ideas when I am near a computer, when I am away from one any scrap piece of paper I can get my hands on will do. I will then take the image, either JPG or PSD straight form Photoshop (or a scan from the paper) and digital ink it in illustrator. This iPad thing just gives me another option for sketching.

I will try to remember to take some screen shots of a drawing in progress if anyone cares to see stuff like that. I do have one where I saved the rough sketch and the line work before coloring it... maybe next week.