Ghost in the Shell Tachikoma, painted on the Nintendo 3DS

One of the unexpected drawbacks to painting with Colors! 3D is that it's almost too much fun. I was working on this illustration last night and really got into it, and when I'd finished I looked at the clock and it was 1:30 in the morning...

I was feeling kind of nostalgic about my old anime fanart days, and I happened to have a little Tachikoma toy sitting on my desk, so I decided to mess around with the photo background feature in Colors! 3D. I snapped a pic from within the program using one of the three (fairly low-res) cameras on the 3DS, and was able to use it to trace over.

And then, using the five layers the app provides, I was able to build a cel-style illustration. I'd have lineart, base color and shading on separate layers, and then merge them. I found that some of ctrlpaint.com's (originally Photoshop-based) layer techniques applied very well, like roughly dropping in color and then erasing what I didn't need before merging.

3D .MPO file

I don't work in cel-style all that much anymore, but I know there are a bunch of users on the Colors! Gallery that do, and I think they're going to love being able to use layers to create their art.

Colors! 3D for the Nintendo 3DS

I've had the distinct opportunity to play with the Nintendo 3DS app "Colors! 3D" (available in the U.S. starting April 5th, via the Nintendo eShop), and it's quite cool. If you like to draw or paint and happen to own a Nintendo 3DS, purchasing this program is a no-brainer in my opinion.

If you have a Nintendo 3DS, you can download the .MPO file here and view it in the camera app's gallery

I'll have more to say about the program in upcoming posts as I put Colors! 3D through its paces, but all in all my experience with it has been great. I think it definitely has the potential to be considered a killer app.

Check out the.MPO file here and view the picture in living 3D! (Well, sort of 3D... More akin to a "View-Master" cartoon image, but still pretty cool!)

Developer Jens Andersson and his crew at Collectingsmiles have created something really great, and I have no doubt that their hard work will be widely appreciated.

Chrome Dome

I'd forgotten how fun it is doing these freeform paintings...

Mira at 2

Decided to do a practice portrait on a whim. Here's a DS painting of my daughter Mira, the ultimate "work-in progress":

 

Some notes... As has been the case lately, I genuinely struggled to keep the painting loose, and had to backtrack a couple times. I'd find myself getting lost in trying to capture too much detail, which had the effect of flattening out the tones too much and making the image pretty bland. It's incredibly tempting to keep pushing for further detail, especially when working from a photoref; I had to let go of the urge to just straight up replicate, and worked on getting the values and overall feeling right.

It never fails to astound me how much she's grown in such a short span of time...

Sci-fi helm

I've got the digital painting urge again...

Toy Huntress

After far too long, I attended Aaron Miller's Figurative Illustration Workshop last night. This month's model was dressed up as a "Toy Huntress", adorned with the furs of plush toy animals. A neat costume, it made for an interesting and challenging figure drawing subject. We started with some quick 5-15 minute poses, which I sketched out with Sharpie pen and gray markers:

... and then moved on to longer poses, which I painted using Colors! for DS:

As always, a pleasant time. It felt good to be drawing again, I've been soooo out of practice lately.

Colors! news

The Colors! gallery now allows paintings to be embedded, here's a test:



(Note: Clicking on the three triangles allows you to adjust the speed of the painting.) In other news, Colors! 3D for the Nintendo 3DS is nearing release via the eShop, I'm really looking forward to trying it out.