Reference Image: Daemon
I felt like drawing something with a significant quantity of black in it today to test some of my bigger Rapidograph pens. So I’m back to another of Denis Loubet‘s illustrations. This was a nice change from using the Sharpie for filling in larger areas. I think I’m slowly starting to adjust to using these fancy schmancy pens.
Reference Images Courtesy of NASA
This one admittedly took more than an hour. 😉
Anyway, Curiosity and the Oxy-Leech caught the attention of my good friend Chase, who worked on the first Mars rovers project. He asked if he could have it and I told him “NO!” But that was only because I’d rather he have something a little nicer. Here’s that something.
Today I learned: Illustration board doesn’t bleed, which isn’t. However, it also doesn’t dry very quickly so it can smear. Also, while it doesn’t bleed, it’s still fibrous and Rapidograph pens can get fibers in them which act like extra nibs and drag large pools of ink around, as evidenced by the really bad looking “G” in the text. I’m still not sure if I like them more than Zigs yet.
Both new hires this week are named Scott. I wanted the Cloud Services guy to be toilet paper so it could be White Cloud soft, but I figured someone would take offense at being toilet paper. *shrug* I wouldn’t.
References: Curiosity and Oxy Leech
Congratulations to NASA, JPL, and humanity! I’m waiting for Curiosity to discover the 1893 Landing Sites. 😉
Today is the first that I used Rapidograph pens. If you follow my blog, you know that I’ve primarily used Zig Millenium pens and once in a great while, Micron pens. Ever since college, people have said that the Rapidograph pens were the way to go, but I’d never used them. I didn’t have any place that I could try them and they were prohibitively expensive.
Fast forward a freaking decade, and here I am. Taking my artwork more seriously and I decided to invest in a set. I have mixed feelings about them so far. I definitely understand that there will be an adjustment period, but I’m not sure if I’m going to like them for the type of drawing that I do. I imagine that they would be wonderful when working with a ruler, but starting and stopping free hand is sort of punishing. It seems to accentuate any shakes that I make and I am unable to press harder like I do with the felt tip pens in order to steady my hand. I’m also unable to draw at as many angles as I am with the felt tips. Another gripe is that the ink is bleeding. I may have to switch to a higher quality paper medium if I want to keep using them.
For the short term, I’m going to stick with them. Especially since they were super expensive. Hopefully I’ll grow into them.
If I were to redraw this, I would do many things differently. That’s the point of a warm up sketch though, isn’t it? That’s essentially all these are. There’s no time for a warm up, so they ARE the warm ups.
I think it’s high time for some more studies and from-life/from-photo drawings. I need to get back to working on my techniques. I think I’ve had enough original drawings for the short term.
This is what happens when I draw stuff in my head. It never “means” anything. It’s just whatever silly phrase comes to mind at the time.
Sometimes you just get a waste of paper. 😛 Also, I definitely need new pens.
Just a tentacly cuttlefish like thinger hangin’ out on the edge of another thinger. Thingers everywhere.
I used to draw these guys all the time when I was younger. I have a whole universe/world in my head where these guys are some of the inhabitants. Oh well. Come for the video game drawings, stay for the weird ones. 😉
Had a presentation/working lunch/meeting thing. This is all you get today, sorry. :/