Alice in Wonderland Print. Process Part 1.

After finishing my DC inspired super hero prints, I’ve decided to shift gears into something more different with a set of prints inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Here, for the first time, is a look into the making of the prints. This is all being sketched, inked and eventually, colored in Photoshop.

Step 1: The first step was the sketching stage. I basically had an idea of how I wanted to draw Alice. Here I was going for more of a Tim Burton/creepy feel to her and the entire image without swaying away from my style.

Step 2: Once done with the pencil stage I moved on to inking. Again, all of this is being done in Photoshop. I’ve recently changed from Manga Studio to working in Photoshop motivated by the desire to be able to work efficiently in both apps and not be too dependent on one or the other. In the process, I’m finding I’m enjoying working in Photoshop more then I thought I would (But don’t worry Manga Studio, I still love you!).

As seen here, I inked Alice in one layer and saved the background for another layer.

Step 3: After finishing the inks for Alice, I tackled the background layers. Fun fact, I LOVE drawing and inking trees. So this background was a true delight to work on.

Step 4: The final step in the inking stage. Here I adjusted Alice a bit by shortening the length of her arms and making her hands smaller. I purposefully drew her with long arms and big hands but after looking at the final image, decided they were too exaggerated and needed to be scaled back a bit. Another subtle element that I changed was her face features. I also, originally drew these to have a more freaky bony look to them but later decided it would be best if I kept her more normal looking to contrast the spookiness of her environment.

And for pure fun, here’s the Photoshop (.psd) file of the pencils purely for educational reasons and study use. This file was created with Photoshop CS5 so I’m sorry if it will not open with older versions.

Download .PSD

Next post I’ll go into the coloring stage.

Superman

Drawn, inked and colored in Photoshop.

Wonder Woman

I use to find it a nightmare to ink in Photoshop. I guess, in many ways, I was spoiled by Manga Studio. Today I came to the realization that inking in Photoshop is as close to traditional inking as you'll get (something I have said continually about Manga Studio), even more so then Manga Studio.

Let me explain.

In Manga Studio, you can easily turn on Correction, which helps keep your drawn lines smooth. You can also turn on something called In and Out, which helps to tapper your starting line (in) and your ending (out). Of these, I had grown accustomed to using Correction. So my lines were, for the most part, always smooth. The reason I used to find it hard to ink in Ps is that it did not have these features. And so my lines would often turn out squiggly. Until today. Where I realized, this is just like the real thing, only due to the smoothness/slippery surface of the Cintiq, you have to put even more effort into it, making it twice as hard to draw smooth lines.

But in the end, I did it. And I'm quite happy with the end results. The only thing I used Manga Studio for this time was to sketch the character. Everything else was done in Ps CS5.

Aquaman And a New Project

Hey everyone. Here's a new pin-up featuring Aquaman. Fun fact. Aquaman has never been appealing to me as a character. Despite the fact he's part of DC Comic's new 52 line up, and despite the fact the books are well drawn, I just can't get around to picking up any. But despite my lack of interest in the character, I always challenge myself to draw characters I don't like all that much, or at all. And usually, it proves to be fun. Such was the case with the above pin-up.

And while I'm on the subject of DC Comic's new 52 relaunch, I'm happy to announce that I've officially signed the contract and will be working on a new sketch card set for DC Comics and Cryptozoic based on DC Comic's new 52 relaunch!

That's right. I'm gonna get to draw all the good (and bad) ones :)

Expect a lot of cute Superman's and Wonder Womans to come.

John Carter Process Take 2: Reader Q&A

Reader Michael Kasaboaki had a few questions regarding my John Carter process. With his permission, I've created a blog post to answer them.

Michael: I recently upgraded to Photoshop CS5 and up until now have been stitching my scanned artwork together with a very manual method that I learned on another blog. This Photomerge feature looks like it may help to automate the process though! Thanks for pointing it out. So, I manage to make do with my small scanner, but I'd really like to get a printer that's capable of printing larger formats like 11 x 17 and I was wondering if you might tell me what brand/model of printer you're using?


Eric: Hi Michael. And thanks again for your questions. There are a lot of printers out there that can print "large media". Some are better then others. I picked mines up at Staples for under $200, So you don't have to go bankrupt picking one up :) The model I'm using is an HP Quickjet with wireless capabilities (which comes out great since you don't have to connect it to your computer and you can print from your iPad, assuming you have one). Personally, for my needs, I think it's excellent.


Michael: Additionally, I'm just learning how to colour in Photoshop myself, but I see a lot of other artists using Manga Studio so I thought I might get a copy of that as well. I've done some reading about it and it looks like it has a lot of comic book specific features built into it which is probably why you say it speeds the colouring process up a bit. I have two questions about Manga Studio though. One, how steep is the learning curve and what's the best way to go about learning it?


Eric: Unlike Photoshop, which was primarily created for Photographers and later adopted by Artists, Manga Studio is a comic's creation powerhouse. It was designed by Comic Book Artists for Comic Book Artists. In my time dealing with the App, I've discovered that there's almost nothing the developers of Ms have not thought off, especially in their higher end or "pro" version, Manga Studio EX. Primarily, though, Ms is geared towards digital Artists who want to create comics in a completely digital environment from start to finish. However, you can use it anyway you'd like. For example, you can traditionally pencil your pages, scan them in, and then ink them in Ms. Or vise versa (which as you know, is what I am currently doing). EX allows you to color the pages the way you would in Photoshop. The reason I say it's better is because you don't have to jump from Ms to Ps to color, and then prepare your art for coloring in Ps (like separating line art). You can just do it all in Ms, quickly and easily. There are other reasons, but I'll save those for a future tutorial or demo.
As for learning curve, yes, there is one. At least there was one for me. I went an entire year without using Ms because I could not get it until I finally decided I was going to tackle it head on. I soon found out it's not that hard to "get it". Actually, it's a whole lot easier them Photoshop. But let me tell you, I had no help. Unlike Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, I had no one I could go to with questions. And there were next to no tutorials on the web. That's not the case now as there are tons of tutorials appearing left and right by a large community of Ms Users. If you want a crash course in the App, you can start here. He covers a lot of great tips on how to use Ms which I'm sure will help you get up to speed on using it for your needs.


Michael: Two, I always thought the cool textures I'm seeing in the artwork of people using Manga Studio came from Manga Studio. However, you're saying you go back to Photoshop to add you textures. I was just curious, does Manga Studio offer any textures at all and do you use any online resources to get your Photoshop textures or are you building all your textures for Photoshop yourself? One thing that I really, really enjoy in your artwork is the texture and it's something that I've yet to really learn how to do and incorporate into my own artwork. I think that will likely be my next challenge, even before tackling learning Manga Studio since it seems that everything can essentially be done in Photoshop. The process may just not be quite as streamlined.


Eric: The only thing I've been using Ps lately is for adding textures. Ms can't handle this yet, but hopefully, it will in the future in which case I'll more then likely be dumping Ps. I'm sure with a little bit of tweaking, you can use Ms to add textures via the brushes. But I don't bother. The reason I use Ps for textures has to do with the Layer Modes. Ms still does not support Layer Modes so until then, I'll stick with Ps for textures (I may do a Textures tutorial this or next week so stay tuned!). As for where I get my textures? I get some here and on occasions, I will tale photographs which I will convert to use as textures. It all depends on what I'm looking for. I have a folder full of textures which I recycle over and over again in many of my illustrations. It may seem like I use different ones all the time, but that's the magic of combining more then 1 texture at a time to create new diverse textures which just make the image pop. But more on this in a future tutorial :)
Thanks to Michael for the questions and if you have any questions, let me hear them in the comments section.