Dagobah: Day 167

January 22, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Alright, well this is turning out to be one of those “epic” pieces I was talking about. For a couple days now I’ve been wanting to draw some type of bog or swamp, and I stumbled upon a picture depicting a scene from Star Wars. Or at least a location from the Star Wars universe. It’s the planet Dagobah! You know, where Yoda lives. The entire planet is a swamp! I’ve included the reference drawing at the bottom. I believe it’s a digital painting, probably drawn with Photoshop or a similar application.

Little UFO: Day 166

January 21, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Today’s drawing turned out to be a pretty good exercise. And, to be completely honest, it didn’t really take a whole lot of work. I used my 0.2 Micron pen, my new Prismacolor Premier colored pencils, and my little Stonehenge pad of vellum paper. All of those items combined turned a regular doodle I would normally do on any given day, into something that looks kind of special. There are some things about this drawing that I’m not too fond of (I wish I made a rainbow beam rather than the little cloud puffs, as one example) but the pencils were fun to work with and sharpened really well. Especially when compared with the supplies I’ve been working with since I started my year long project. What a massive difference!

I think next up, perhaps even this afternoon, I’ll use my other pad of 9 x 12 bristol paper to try and make that Dagobah (It’s a swamp planet from Star Wars for those not in the know) idea I had the other night. I’m quite confident that I can pull it off, and I’m excited to get started on it.

Dots: Day 164

January 19, 2015 by Robert Chapman

I’m having some fun with today’s work, and so I’m doing something different than the pieces I’ve been drawing lately. The entire image will eventually be comprised solely of dots. I’m kind of figuring it out as I go along though, so I could potentially come up with some interesting ideas and go off in a different direction. Right now though, my plan is to stick with various sized dots and take my time with it. I’m attempting to make every dot meaningful, if that makes sense sense! However, because it’s going to take so long to finish, I’m going to work on it the rest of the evening during tonight’s NHL hockey game and just post what I have so far.

I think because I need to use my crappy tablet camera, I can’t really get much of the detail to show in a photograph unless I get real close to the page. It’s not much so far anyways, as it’s really just a bunch of green dots for now. I have an idea in mind though, I just hope it all turns out well and good.

Fluffy Tree: Day 163

January 18, 2015 by Robert Chapman

What an odd looking tree. I name thee “Fluffy Tree”.

Anyways, I’m pretty satisfied with today’s drawing overall. I’m so used to outlining everything with a black pen/marker but… maybe it’s fate that my pens all ran out and that my new art supplies are showing up a bit later than expected. I should attempt drawings like this one more often, I think. I kind of wish I didn’t do the roots like that, but that’s actually where the drawing started, and it kind of evolved from there into what you see now. Lesson learned, I guess.

I hope everyone’s having a fantastic weekend! Throughout Friday and Saturday my weekend wasn’t so great for me. I was feeling a little depressed, and I’ve been having trouble putting my finger on what the exact issue was. I think I just needed to do some actual work. Take the time and get things done, you know? Because now I’m feeling better.

Last night I spent a good few hours setting up a Redbubble store, and although I don’t expect to sell anything besides a few items to some friends and family, it’s something I’ve been talking about doing for a little while. My store is now active and it looks pretty nice too. Thankfully a lot of the images I uploaded were big enough to fit on pretty much any item available. Namely, throw pillows and iPad cases, which seem like the best looking items to me. iPhone cases and actual prints look terrific too.

The link to my store front is right here, and please, let me know what you guys think! There is still a lot more work to do this week and I need any advice I can get. What items would you be interested in? Are the prices pretty high on Redbubble? Suggestions are very appreciated.

Everything has to be Perfect! Day 161

January 16, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Blaaaaaah! Everything I did today to try and be creative just failed miserably. I mean, I wasn’t even in the mood to draw to begin with, but I tried anyways. I think this is the first time in a long while, maybe since I first started, that I just wasn’t feeling it. I would of done nothing today if it wouldn’t of meant regretting that I missed a single day when tomorrow comes around. Now that I’m typing this out and just about done for the day, I guess I’m feeling a little bit better.

I was expecting my new art supplies to arrive in the mail today, and when it didn’t that’s when my mood began to go downhill. I started drawing and then my last pen ran out of ink. If you look closely at today’s picture, the ink (on the little circles) is all messed up. It’s not perfect? Everything has to be perfect!

Anyways, I still wasn’t in the mood to do any of this after my pen died, but I pressed onward by coloring in those little circles. My dark green colored pencil breaks, then again ….now it’s too short to hold properly and won’t sharpen. Blaaaaah! So I started filling in the lighter green and the exact same frickin thing happens! Okay, okay… nothing’s gonna stop me from drawing a big red monster coming out of the shadows in the background! And well… that kinda turned out pretty cool actually.

P.S. Blah

Surfing Pikachu: Day 159

January 14, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Today, I spent an hour or so adding in the sun to finish up my Japanese style wavey scene. I’m super happy with how it all turned out. I decided to go ahead and recreate the entire picture in Photoshop and that also turned out really well! I’m noticing that I missed a few details, like some of the blue shading at the bottom, and the picture totally needs a surfing Pikachu but I was pretty distracted when I was finishing it up. Even so it was a fun little project.

I’m going back and forth on how exactly I should sell my artwork online. I mean, on one hand you have websites like Society6, RedBubble, Inprnt, and DesignByHumans. Then on the other hand you have Etsy, or an online store that I build myself directing from my website. With the former options, the vast majority of the profits go to them, but they handle most of the work and take care of the expenses of printing and mailing. With the latter options, especially with my own store, I get most of the profits, but there’s a lot more work to be done as I have to get the prints done myself, and send them out, etc. However, then I know exactly what kind of print quality my fans are getting. They deal through me, and when people ask, “Hey, where did you get that picture on your wall?” they’ll respond with, “Oh, this guy Robert Chapman.” rather than, “Oh, from some website called Society6.” I’m honestly considering using both options, and it’s probably easier for me to get started with the first four websites I mentioned, as I’m not quite set to do all of the work yet. That will come in time as I gain knowledge and experience. I just won’t give them my highest quality stuff. I’ll stick to a certain marketable style with those sites where they get almost all of the profit. I don’t know, not sure what to do.

That all being said, there’s no reason I can’t do all of it. Have a whole whack of fun characters and designs up on those mass market websites and hopefully make a few dollars here and there. Then for my big projects that I’m really proud of, sell my own prints (or even one of a kind stuff maybe) through my website and get them printed and mailed myself. Any suggestions?

Gift Exchange Progress:

Brad Thornhill *mailed*

Meggz Fuller *all set to be mailed*

Rene (Assassin) Moran *not finished*

High School Pencil Case: Day 158

January 13, 2015 by Robert Chapman

I’ve kind of begun to realize that the pictures I’m making, all the physical drawings and such, are all made with very basic supplies. You know, a bunch of random colored pencils left over from my highschool days 100 years ago, dollar store paper, whatever pens and markers I can find at Walmart or under/inside living room furniture. Those sort of things are what I’m used to drawing with. You scrounge up whatever you can find and do your best to make something awesome, or at the very least, something moderately interesting. Because of the money I’ve received from my super fans lately ($81 sitting in my Paypal account), I’ve decided to find a place online and order some proper supplies.

After a bit of research, I found what I think to be the right combination of pens, pencils, and paper, that should fit what I’m trying to do. All from this website here: www.Currys.com. I haven’t sent away the order as of this moment, because I’m still going through the completion process. I’m also hoping (assuming really) that they use Paypal. I mean, who doesn’t use Paypal as far as online retailers go?

I’m hoping that when I receive my new supplies that I really notice a massive difference in the quality of my physical work. I mean, I’m even thinking of buying the $50 colored pencil set rather than the $30 on I currently ordered. Might as well spend all of the donated money, right? It’s going into something that will definitely help me in the long run. If I decide to go ahead and upgrade the pencils then I’ll probably need to remove something from the order so it doesn’t exceed $81. I’ll have to figure out what I’m going to do. If there are any artists out there with any suggestions at all, please let me know in the comments! I really appreciate all the Facebook likes I’ve received lately and I’m hoping there are some artists in there somewhere.

Robert's Creative Habit

Daily Artwork / 365 Days

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