Most of the artwork I’ve uploaded and shared via my website has been roughly 2000 pixels by 2000 pixels, which probably wasn’t the best idea in the world. The larger the image, the longer it takes to load. So, I’ll keep my original versions on file, but from now on I think I’m going to continue to upload smaller variants of each piece of artwork I create. Lesson learned, I guess.
Sometimes you learn a lot more when you limit yourself with some rules. Today I decided I would draw the first thing that came to mind, while restricting my Photoshop tools to just one really large brush (But allowing myself to adjust pen pressure, as usual). It was a brush that I’ve never tried before, actually. It was a nice change of pace to try something new.
After painting another No Man’s Sky ship (I told you I was going to keep this up for awhile!) I decided that it looked pretty bland, so I messed around with it using some filters and the Photoshop tool that I use most often, the Mixer Brush. I feel that it turned out pretty awesome. Of course, you can’t really see the detail proper until you see it at it’s original size. Just click the image above and you’ll see that there’s quite a bit of varied detail and color.
So, I went a little overboard with today’s picture. First off, I want to say that I’m having a lot of fun posting an actual new drawing every day. That’s what I’ve been doing lately, and I would love to continue doing this for a little while longer. Epic projects are nice, but this Year of Creative Habits started out as a project that solely revolved around posting a brand new piece of artwork each and every day. So, again, it’s nice to occasionally find my way back to my original vision for this year long project.
I think it’s a good idea to occasionally step back and try something different. I made a couple No Man’s Sky space ships today, and I tried my hardest to not go overboard with the detail. I feel that’s really something I would like to get better at before I finish this Year of Creative Habits. I tend to go a little crazy with the details sometimes. Today, I forced myself to take it easy and stick to the basics.
This is definitely one of my personal favorites that I’ve done so far. Since I’ve started creating artwork every day about a year ago, I decided it was a good idea to put all of my daily artwork into various descriptive categories. When I started this No Man’s Sky sentinel picture, I placed it under the “Photoshop” and “Scene” category. However, I have a “Character” category and I’m starting to think that I should go back and select that as well. I feel this machine has some personality to it. Er… him, I mean.
I didn’t spend as much time drawing today as I have been lately. I have company coming by shortly, and I wanted to make sure I got an earlier start than usual on my drawing and writing. Today I added a few new bits of plant-life, and researched a little bit on how to make my grass look better. I only added a bit of extra texture to the grass, but I plan to do more to it in the future until it looks the way I want it to look. At the moment, it’s not quite at that point.
