Mobile Website Difficulties: Day 114

Beach Sunset

So I decided to import my drawing from yesterday into Photoshop and finish it up that way. Now that I’m back to using Photoshop once again, I’m able to add so much more detail in a very short time when compared to drawing with pens on paper. Not to mention have many more tools at my disposal. I strongly believe the finished sunset will look above and beyond better than anything I would be able to create with pencils. I want the best looking picture possible, so I might as well try digital with this.

This post is going up very close to midnight because I’ve been working on changing up the look of my website. Right now it’s quite frustrating because I can either have it look great and function well on the desktop version, but the mobile version is terrible. Or vise versa. Bah! I really need to get this fixed as soon as possible. Like I said, it’s frustrating. Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Since I posted this not 10 minutes ago, I’ve found a nice little plugin that seems to have fixed the problem! Though it’s not perfect, at least the site seems to work well on my tablet. Please write a comment and let me know whether it’s working on your phone or tablet. Thank you!

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Nice and Boring: Day 113

Palm Tree

Palm tree! What a nice and boring piece of art. And I had a blast doing it. After spending more than a week working on a single Photoshop picture, it was a breath of fresh air to work on something so simple. This was a much needed change of pace.

My current plan for tomorrow is to find some black pens and fill in all of the tree and ground silhouette. Afterwards, I’ll pick out a bunch of colors to fill in a sunset to the best of my ability. I’ve never drawn anything like this before, so it’ll be a nice challenge.

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Facebook Fanpage: Day 112

Ralph Complete

Alright! Here we go. I think he’s all finished. I say “I think” because I’m already finding new things to add/change just looking him over right now. However, I will at least take a break from Ralph for a little while. A few days or so maybe, If not forever. With my new Facebook fan page going strong (70 followers right now!) I really need to move on to something new for a little while so everyone following stays interested. I think that’s a good idea.

Well, let’s get to what’s new for today; I finished up the alien looking gun he’s holding, added a shadow for the gun across his body, and tried my best to replicate the skin detail on the new hand that’s holding the cannon.

So first and foremost, I think the detail I added on the gun is pretty fantastic. It was touch and go for awhile as I was trying to fill in as much of the empty white space as possible and some of the early ideas I had just didn’t look right. Then there was a problem with how the gun was standing out from the rest of the picture. Actually, it still does! Though nowhere near as bad as it once did. When I really think about it, the gun would stand out anyways as it’s not organic like most of the image. I think the gun pops off the “page” because of that, and because it’s so very white. So it stands out because of normal reasons, I think.

Secondly, I created the skin pattern on the hand holding the gun. I used a textured brush with some specific settings for the skin pattern days ago and it was actually difficult to find exactly what I did. I spent some time looking through the different painting layers and found enough details, colors, and settings to replicate it decent enough to not draw too much attention to that hand. So unless otherwise informed, I don’t think it’s that noticeable. I just informed you though, didn’t I?

Next up is the shadow on the body. This was the very last thing I added and might of even been forgotten if it wasn’t for the actual gun standing out as it does. I needed something to blend it in with the rest of the picture. Then I realized it should give off a shadow on his body, and that small detail is one of my favorite elements in the entire drawing. Seriously.

Well, that’s it! That’s Ralph. I created a guy mutant thing named Ralph. I think he’s pretty cool and I actually hope I’m not completely finished with him as I can already tell that I’ll miss working on him.

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Ralph’s Arsenal: Day 111

Ralph

Remember when you kind of felt sorry for this guy? I mean, the poor guy was injected with alien DNA and always had those gentle blue eyes. Now Ralph’s bringing some fight back to the real monsters that did this to him! The gun isn’t finished yet, neither is the hand that’s holding the weapon, but I’m still satisfied with how today’s progress went.

I got to working on this pretty late today as I’ve felt tired and a little bit miserable for most of the day. I sat down at my computer to draw, a little bit frustrated, turned on some tunes, and added those little bullets on his leather strap there. Once finished, I realized bullets were a stupid idea as I was thinking of giving him a big hammer or something. So I googled some modern real life rifles and couldn’t find anything that looked good. Or even anything that might spark an interesting idea. So I then tried alien weaponry and found a whole lot of interesting cannon designs. I decided to take a few ideas from a couple of those pictures and create my own. Even without detail, his gun looks pretty badass, if I do say so myself.

I’ve also added an explosive that’s held in his tentacle there. I’m pretty satisfied with the design of the bomb, however I’m not 100% sure everyone else will know what it is right away. I’m thinking of added two slots in his weapon that would holster these bombs. With one being empty as if he just removed the explosive. Having them housed in his alien cannon might help signify that they are indeed weapons.

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Armored Pauldron: Day 110

Ralph

I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect piece of artwork. I don’t think I’m ever fully satisfied when I finish a drawing. With the project I’m currently working on (The guy above), I’m spending as much time on him as possible. I’m not sure if I’ll ever reach the point where I’m satisfied. But rather than moving on the moment I get bored, or inspired to try something new and exciting, I’m keeping my focus on this one picture.

I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on this one today, though I did manage to draw up an armored pauldron and a leather strap to go with it. The strap isn’t finished yet though, as I’m not too happy with how it’s turning out. I’m quite sure I’ll have to go through some video tutorials on creating my own leather textures tomorrow. The metal on the actual pauldron looks pretty cool though!

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Support From Friends & Family: Day 109

Ralph

Tattoos! That’s what this guy was missing. It makes him a little more intimidating, and gives him a new feature that detracts from all that bare skin. While he does look just fine as he is, I still feel like there’s more I can do. It would be really nice if I could figure out a way to remove his black outline, but it doesn’t look proper when I simply remove it. I’ll look into that more tomorrow. Yup, at least one more day with this guy, I think! He deserves all the detail I can add.

Alright, what else did I do today… Those horns! I think they look pretty cool. They definitely needed some kind of texture. Now they have an added dimension, which they sorely needed. The only other thing I can think of that’s new with today’s version is more skin detail all over. I think mostly on the rest of the lower body. I left that unfinished yesterday.

Lastly, I created a Facebook fan page for my artwork (which can be found here). I’ve been meaning to do it for awhile now. I just didn’t think it would be a big deal, so I put it off. Boy, was I wrong. Where the heck are all these people coming from?! I have so many friends and family pushing so hard for me to get as many likes as possible. I think almost 10 people shared my page between last night and today. That’s ridiculous, guys! I have over 50 likes. Do you realize how much pressure that puts me under? 😉 Seriously though, you guys are all rock and stuff. Thank you so much.

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Going Beyond: Day 108

Ralph

I’m excited about doing my drawing again today. I suddenly see all kinds of possibilities with the current project I’m working on. I’m really happy with all the little details I’ve added. It might not look like too much of an update from yesterday’s post, but I did work on this guy for about 2 hours this afternoon. The skin looks noticeably better with lots of extra details. We also have the exposed muscle there with some new colors mixed in. Then finally I included a shadow for the face tentacles.

The primary reason I’m getting excited about this project again is that I think I want to redo a lot of the black outline to add even more detail to the overall shape of this guy. I want to do this because now that outline is standing out for me. Not in a good way. I just want to add more curves and small details as I go along the black outline.

I really think I’m just going to keep working on this guy until I feel he’s the best I can possibly make him. So that might take awhile because I think just about everything I’ve done previously I’ve completed to satisfaction, but I’ve never gone beyond that. I always think, “Hey, I think I’m done with this. Time to move on.” but now I’m going to try sticking with one thing and adding more and more until there’s nothing else I could possibly add. This might turn out to be bad. But it’s worth trying.

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