L5 Astronaut - Figurative Illustration Workshop, March session

Last night I attended the Figurative Illustration Workshop, where this month's model was "Astronaut Rodney Lewis" from the crowd-funded sci fi miniseries "L5". The model, who is also L5's production designer and "action wrangler" Chad Burns, had on some really nice gear; as I understand it he built the spacesuit himself from things he picked up at places like Home Depot and American Science & Surplus. So awesome.

L5's director Stanley Von Medvey and production designer Chad Burns

The life drawing session was a great opportunity to test out Colors! 3D "in the wild" and it worked out really well. Having the compact form factor of the 3DS allowed me to paint from what would normally be a problematic angle. Also, the built-in camera allowed me to take reference pics on the fly, which I could then import into Colors! 3D without pause. And being able to paint using layers offered a lot of flexibility in terms of workflow. I built the painting up primarily as a 2D image; doing it in 3D would have required a bit more forethought, and I wanted to concentrate more on just painting.

Astronaut Rodney Lewis of L5

Just for kicks I tried converting it into a 3D image afterwards. It actually adapted to 3D pretty well, and didn't involve much if any blending. Check out the .MPO file if you have a 3DS (or some other compatible way to view 3D) and let me know what you think.

Thanks again go to Aaron Miller for running the whole shindig, it's always a good time.

08th Div. Tactical Cyborg Ops

More exploration of Colors! 3D:

3D .MPO file

I took a pic with a 3DS camera of a sketch I had doodled in a notebook. Then I set it as a background and blocked out the silhouette and some tonal values. I mostly worked everything out on one layer, and then copied it over a couple times to add depth. I erased away from each layer whatever I didn't want to pop forward; in some cases, I tried using the eraser tool at low opacity to blend pieces into the background, with mixed results.

While the 3D is admittedly pretty gimmicky, it does have me thinking about spatial relationships, how to make stuff come forward or recede into the background, and that's cool.

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...