Chris Howard's Writing & Art

New blog link

Please update your links. My new blog is here:

Chris Howard's Writing & Art

 

Warm up sketching

I spent a bunch of time over the weekend drawing, warming up for another go at Saltwater Witch--that's the graphical version. I'm currently in the middle of chapter 12, and now I mean to push things several chapters beyond that.  There's some kick-ass stuff coming up, but I won't share anything before I post the pages.  However I will share some scanned pages from my sketch book, mostly faces, heads, some poses.

Click on the image for the full view:

Chris

New Maps and Charts page live on Saltwater Witch!

New Maps and Charts page live on Saltwater Witch!

Maps and Charts relating to the Seaborn, Kassandra, and her family. I will be posting more, but starting out with three items, a map from the House Rexenor archives, Kassandra's "hand drawn" map of the Nine-Cities, and Kassandra's family tree.

http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch/maps.php

Saltwater Witch Chapter 4 is Up!

I just uploaded Saltwater Witch chapter 4 with the new opening panel! Read it all here: http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com/switch

Saltwater Witch Chapter 3 is Back!

Opening scene for Saltwater Witch Chapter 3. All new chapters 1 and 2 are up on the site with new art, layout, type, and other good stuff. Hope you like!

Read it all here: http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch

Click for the full view!

Kassandra reads

I spent the last couple hours sketching and painting this one for the background of the "Kassandra Reads... (Comic Links)" page, which will contain banners and links to comics I like and read. This will hang off Saltwater Witch

Click for the full view:

All new Chapter 2!

Okay, I've posted the first part of Saltwater Witch chapter 2, with a bunch of new art, new type, layout, and almost everything else. This new edition of the graphic novel will run vertically (Chapter 1) or horizontally like chapter 2. Check it all out here: http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch (There's a link below the Chapter 2 image for a "Sneak Peek"--click that to see the latest stuff!). I'm still tweaking chapter 2, so you may see some changes being pushed to the site.

Preview pics of the first two panels:

.

Easy perspective in Photoshop and GIMP

Here’s an example of a drawing I started tonight and then completed over a few hours.  This is a really wide opening scene for Saltwater Witch Chapter 2, with Kassandra’s school rolling into view and as you’ll see in the finished work, some interesting stuff going on beneath and around it.

I’m not going to do a perspective how to, or get into transparencies, layering, or any of the tools other than the brush tool (the one with the paint brush icon).  I’m posting this to show you how I do quick and easy perspective drawings using Photoshop or GIMP.  I’ll post some links to books on perspective at the end.

Tools
I assume everyone knows what Adobe Photoshop is.  Here’s Adobe’s site for those who want to learn more: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html
 

GIMP (http://www.gimp.org) is a really powerful, feature-competitive, and free drawing, visual design, image manipulation application for native Linux and Windows with a good solid version that runs under X on Mac OSX.  And it’s free.

I use Photoshop, but everything I’m going to explain works just as well and in the same way with GIMP.

Set up: layers and cursors
I usually create several layers for the drawing, one for the horizon line, one for the vertical lines, one for the lines that begin at the vanishing points, and maybe one for a reference image (I'm using my drawing from Saltwater Witch chapter 1 in the example).  Later I will create another to run some thicker lines over the structure, giving it shape.

Before I start any perspective drawing I change the cursor preferences to a standard (ugly in my opinion) “paint brush” cursor.  This helps me see where I’m clicking on the canvas.  I normally use the cursor that outlines the brush and shows its size, but for perspective drawing I’m using such a small brush, usually a few pixels wide, that I loose track of it. In photoshop I go under Display & Cursor preferences and change the Painting Cursor to “Standard”.  That’s it.

The Shift Key
It’s all in the shift key.  Here’s how this works.  Create a new canvas/image whatever your app calls it.  Make it fairly wide, at least 2000 pixels wide by a 1000 pixels high. (The example drawing I’m doing is 9500 wide, 2550 high).

So, here’s the whole trick in one step.  We’ll make a horizon line—one side of the drawing to the other.  Pick a nice spot on the left side about a quarter of the way up from the bottom, and then hold down the shift key, move your cursor to the other side of the drawing, and click. Release the shift key. Photoshop and GIMP will both connect two points every time you hold down the shift key.  With a couple tricks that I’ll get into next, that’s all there is to it. 

Vertical Lines
You probably want vertical lines for your perspective illustrations, but it’s not that easy with the shift-key method.  There are at least two ways to solve this.  I use both of them. In both Photoshop and GIMP (and other apps) the transparent layers have a nice checkerboard pattern, which will give an easy to follow vertical guide.  So, use the click-shift-click method to draw vertical lines. Another way is to use the Rectangle Tool and draw very narrow rectangles, basically two lines with an empty pixel between them. I use this method in the example drawing, but both work well.

Here's a screenshot with some of the structural lines drawn on a new layer:

Here's a much reduced final illustration, with a link to a sneak peak at Saltwater Witch Chapter 2--the leading scene with a few of the not quite finished panels:

Chapter 2 Sneak Peak:

There's a lot more to it!

This shows how the building was incorporated into the opening scene.

 

Info:
Perspective for Comic Book Artists by David Chelsea
http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Comic-Book-Artists-Professional/dp/0823005674

The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium by Phil Metzger
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Perspective-Ultimate-Artists/dp/1581808550

Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer
http://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-Point-Perspective-Comics-Ground/dp/1581809549

There are a bunch of Web and YouTube tutorials
https://www.google.com/search?q=perpsective+drawing

 

.

Saltwater Witch Banners and Linking

I finished up a new format for Saltwater Witch last weekend--with new art, all new lettering.  It took me a couple weeks to complete, but I haven't had time to post about it until tonight. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. I'd love to hear what you think. 

If you would like to link to to Saltwater Witch, I've created some banner images:

Right-click and "Save Image as..." and link back to http://www.saltwaterwitch/switch/  Or Here's the html if you just want to copy and paste it into your site:

Small

<p><a href="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch"><img border="0" src="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switchbanner_155x60.png" alt="Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel" title="Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel" /></a></p>

Medium

<p><a href="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch"><img border="0" src="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switchbanner_468x60.png" alt="Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel" title="Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel" /></a></p>

Large

<p><a href="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch"><img border="0" src="http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switchbanner_Large.png" alt="Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel" title="Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel" /></a></p>

Saltwater Witch update - pages 234 through 238

Okay, I've posted them--www.SaltwaterWitch.com! For the foreseeable future I'm going to draw panels on my iPad (color when I can) and letter in Photoshop, hoping to get this down as a system that won't take all of my time. I have the rest of this chapter and a bunch of the next--roughly twelve pages--planned out, storyboarded but really sloppy. I drew eleven panels yesterday in Art Rage and Sketchbook Pro, which is a lot for me, and the quality is pretty good.  I'm doing a lot more with gestures and facial expressions.  Disgust is a really tough one to capture. I like the way all of these pages came out, enough to post them.  Haven't colored the last four, but I'm going to keep moving.

Firsts: first time drawing a toilet.

Questions?  Comments? I'd love to hear what you think! 

See chapters  1 - 12 here:

http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com