Tachikoma polished

Here's the Tachikoma rendered out in Photoshop:

Working on this piece has been something of a learning experience for me (well, moreso than usual). Back when I used to do freelance illustration in my spare time, it'd take me about an hour or two to get revved up and find my flow, and then I could be at it for 5 or 6 hours and just knock it out. But now, everything is all fits-and-starts. I'd be working for an hour or so, and just when I start getting into it-- the kid wakes up from her nap, or I have to change her diaper, or she wants to crawl up into my lap and "Paint like Daddy!" Bye bye flow. Still, there are ways to find time to work on stuff, it just takes some sacrifices.

Works-in-progress

Gah, I've been so busy lately... Haven't had a lot of opportunities to work on my own stuff, but I didn't want too much time to go by without posting something here.

I've been working on this piece during my daily commute, re-working an older illustration into something a little more painterly, using Colors! 3D. Unfortunately, the file seems to have gotten corrupted, so I'm not able to output it at high resolution. I might take it into Photoshop and build it up more from there:

 

I'm also doing a paintover of another previous illo, a more dimensional version of the anime-style Tachikoma. I'm working out all the shading in Colors! 3D, and then I'll take it into Photoshop for a more finished polish:

New digipaint sketches

On the original Colors! for DS:

Alien Interface 2.0

On Colors! 3D:

Mr. Rhino

Raid on the HMS Arcturus

I've had a hankerin' to do a Star Wars-style space battle scene with the 3DS... This is just a quick down-and-dirty doodle painting, more a brain dump than anything else. It looks pretty cool in 3D, IMO:

Gallery playback:

Supergirl - Figurative Illustration Workshop, April session

As a nod to next week's comic book convention C2E2 (Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo), this month's Figurative Illustration Workshop was held a little early, with the model dressed as the DC Comics heroine Supergirl.

The model alternated between two poses, at five-minute intervals with breaks from time to time. This was done to give the model an action pose and a rest pose. Because of the switching back and forth, I found it a little hard to pin down the likeness; still, I think the resting pose one turned out decent:

Another fun life drawing workshop under my belt!

Colors! 3D released today! Also, a painting of a turtle

Colors! 3D is now available for purchase through the Nintendo eShop. For only $6.99, it's a versatile digital painting program with a well-thought-out interface, and I think everyone who owns a Nintendo 3DS needs to add it to their app library. And I'll admit to being biased, but what can I say? I painted a turtle!

Mr. Turtle

The painting got a little glitchy towards the end so I'm not able to share a 3D .MPO file, but if you have Colors! 3D you can view it all dimensional-like in the online gallery.

Colors! 3D painting playbacks

The Colors! 3D gallery repainter has been tweaked, so I can now share playbacks of the paintings (it's still a little glitchy, but they're working on it). You can get some idea of how the 3D works by clicking and holding the image during playback, and dragging your mouse pointer around.






Colors! 3D will be official released to the Nintendo eShop in the Americas tomorrow, April 5th. I'm really looking forward to seeing the creative things other users come up with.