Here's a concept I made recently - hopefully the first of a set. It's the first real digital drawing I've made with my new iPad Pro (using Procreate) and I'm starting to get the hang of it.
Will it ever become a game? We'll see!
For now, more concepting, and more practicing digital sketching.
Here's a time-lapse of the sketch:
I've been using a Surface Book for my digital sketching since the device launched, back in 2015/2016, and it's served me well. For a first-generation device, it's a great machine. Were it not for its waning battery life and increasingly slow feel, I'd probably keep using it.
So I've been eyeing an upgrade for a while now, following the release of the Surface Book 2 and then the Surface Book 3, but noting several issues with each iteration of the hardware: pen input jitter, battery volatility, specs that aren't even close to cutting edge, etc. It's been disappointing watching the Book line be relegated to the back of the pack.
I'd hoped this year we'd see a refresh that made an upgrade worth it - even at a premium cost - but I don't see any updates on the horizon, especially with the global chip shortage looking like it'll continue on into next year.
Where does that put me? Well, if you remember some of my really old blog posts, I'm eating crow. I'm trying out an iPad Pro as a replacement.
It's Microsoft's loss, honestly. I've been an evangelist for the Surface Book since I've owned one, and I still like the device. But it just doesn't make sense for me to wait another 6-12 months for a half-step upgrade. Especially when it might still have the same issues people are facing now. Especially with the less accurate pen input. Especially when it will likely cost more.
I might come back to the Surface Book in the future, but for now, I'm going with an iPad Pro for digital drawing. Let's see where that takes me.
After all these years, I've finally got some hardware capable of doing digital drawing - and so I've been spending time playing around with it in my spare time, getting used to how it feels, and learning how to use Manga Studio 5.
Here's a quick drawing I did today, just for fun:
No story behind it, just a bunch of random doodling here. Hopefully I'll have more soon!
If you've ever looked through my album of drawings for the Year of Art 2011 project, you might recognize one of the illustrations used in the Los Angeles Coalition for Water Conservation (LACWC)'s new campaign, Dustbowl Disciples.
46 seconds into the video they produced, you'll see this:
And that should look pretty familiar - here's drawing #150 from the Year of Art 2011, appropriately titled 'Dry Mouth':
Some of the people who worked on the Dustbowl Disciples project were kind enough to reach out to me about using the artwork, and I was happy to help. I re-drew this illustration for them, providing a much cleaner vector version!
I wrote this post with the intent of highlighting the use of one of my illustrations, but I'll close it by saying that if you've got a project which requires illustrations (new or existing), do get in touch with me using my contact form. I'm almost always up for work like this!
Here's the final of the poster I made for one of my ex-coworkers, who is at the 49ers/Seahawks game on Thanksgiving. Maybe they'll get it on TV!
Either way, you can enjoy it here now.
After a little more work, here's the final set of portraits to be used for the football sign I mentioned in the previous post. For any 49ers fans out there, do these guys look recognizable to you?
One of my former coworkers at CytoSport commissioned me (with beer) to create an illustrated sign for her for an upcoming 49ers game. Here's a work-in-progress image of some of the player portraits for the image.
This is another graphic I created for a podcast I frequently listen to, this time for How Did This Get Made? You'd have to listen to the Monkey Shines episode to get the full context for this graphic, but I recommend it - it's a great podcast all around.
This image was created as an idea for a t-shirt graphic and was unsolicited.
This was a graphic I created for one of my favorite podcasts of the moment, Matt & Mattingly's Ice Cream Social. The quote at the bottom of the graphic is a quote from the show.
I created this unsolicited and sent them the artwork when I was finished. I hope they use it for something fun!
When I create WordPress themes for my website, I usually add a silly screenshot, so when I view all the installed themes in the back end of the site, I can tell which is which easily. This is the image I created for the current theme (2014). Enjoy!
