*groan*

I have to admit... I like medievalsomethinghousenumbertenmillionohthere'sadog-jobs but sometimes I miss my chubs work. I hope I can finish all the missing comic pages for this month next week (brilliant optimism, I has you!) and finish some more medievalsomethinghousenumbertenmillionohthere'sadog things and next to that I finally started working on the 4th calendar. I have no idea when I will finish but I pray I have some a lot time in July/August/September/whatit'salreadyDecemberholysh#+§.

*hint* there's a story...
I dislike how it looks so unfinished but surprise! it IS unfinished and the only person I can blame for it is me, myself and I. I normally try to get the face right and mull over the rest when I have more time (ending up redoing everything anyway). I want to stick to a non so 3dimensional style and include some more funny geeky illustrations this time and hope it works out and people won't freak out when they get weird stuff for their birth month.

At the moment I'm happy I have my moleskine with me most of the time since lately I keep getting tons of ideas (obviously always the case when you can't work on them....) and have to scribble those down with additional notes. Totally not worth uploading but good to keep them for more than 3 nano seconds.

Farewell, I have to finish a bit more of medievalsomethinghousenumbertenmillionohthere'sadog. Buh. I still love the job. I tell myself so.

Sometimes...

... my own idealism is totally not cooperating with healthy common sense.

.... painting size... and final size (actually you see a bit more but ... you get the point). I know it's an idiotic obsession with details but.. but... but. It's DETAILS!

Some thoughts on details: I have to admit I hated painting details. I can't kid myself when I say I loved painting those 2 years ago. I hated it from the bottom of my heart.

It changed a lot and in two years I realized that it's a good practice like yoga. The longer you meditate over something and keep your inner demons at bay when all you want to do is scream and yank the computer off the table and throw it out the bloody window... the calmer you can get.
A lot of things stress me still now (like setting up the working color scheme and god, sometimes it's really hard- especially if the colors are not in my usual comfort zone) but details don't stress me anymore.

It's something I learned to love and I'm quite grateful for every job I got with tons of details because it meant I had to face my inner demons. A lot of artists neglect it and stick to their comfort zones, colors they love, lack of details blabla endless list. I understand sometimes it can be called "style" but normally I see it as a bad habit and no craving to take your art to another level if you keep doing only things your 100%ly sure you actually CAN do.

I am not fond of radical changes but whenever I can stuff something into my style and it's a good add-on and no distraction or harsh change my votes are totally up for searching and sticking to them... and searching for the next one.

What's your thoughts on the topic? Are you more of the "I against I" or "no need to change" type?

Lion Kiki Steps

and because I already uploaded it and it's no magic at all, just a very good brush

(click on the image to get redirected to the ... huge download >_< )

Basic steps as always:
sketch
flats (thankfully done by Lew)
painting
painting²
painting³
more painting
adding a background color
done

It's really no magic at all and the brush won't do the strokes for you. In the end you have to be patient and play a bit with the brush opacity and flow.

Art Academy Contest

... totally forgot to blog the information.

You can find all information on my homepage (onmipresent sign on the front page, you can't miss it).
www.trenchmaker.com

The contest is world-wide, no restrictions except age. As long as you have a shipping address that isn't "moon" it should work. And of course if your postal service isn't as crappy as my DHL one.

IF you have questions, you can ask those here. Otherwise happy drawing & painting!
Please keep in mind that I don't like cheaters so if something looks weird as in traced or copied, you'll have to prepare for the entry NOT being accepted. Sorry, but play fair.

You don't have to create a masterpiece. If you check my favs I have some really charming pieces in that are quite not a daVinci. If it's personal and charming and has something special, it's a good chance you'll get a DS.

Questions? Shoot!

The signed DS, first price, will be personalised for the winner. I won't draw on it before the contest ends. If the person happens to love Kiki or wants a toad/shoe/fingerprint/addfunnwishhere and I doodled Kulla on it might be odd.

Grass... again

... and I never get tired of it.
I'm still cleaning up my brush presets- throwing out a lot of things I got from other people or found on the net. Probably 95% of those brushes aren't really useful.
Normally I use the one I already >blogged about< and it's still the most useful although it looks so plain. With nature it gets a bit more tricky. Of course it looks awesome to paint every single blade of grass but mostly you'll end up needing ages to do that.
Since I colorate my comic panels 100%ly and the backgrounds NEED a lot of work I redo my preset-list and try to create grass, flowers (those above are self-made as well) and mostly leaves for bushes or trees.

Since some people seem to be eager but have no clue how to do it... (and you SHOULD do it):
This video explains it pretty well

Keep watching it till the video end. The last part is the most important part of the whole process. Defining the brush presets will take a while and you have to test a lot but it's worth the work! :)

And because it's pretty interesting and I just got it: If you happen to have the awesome artbook of "Open Season" check the background paintings again. There's one page showing some custom brushes they actually used and it's interesting to see how those simple brushes work together and how amazing the final result looks.

Christmas -whoot

Short gif animation of the last illustration for my calendar.
Not as fancy as I wanted it to be but I like it anyway and it looks nice in a quite bigger version. Funny (and really annoying) is that the colors are massively changed in the screenshot mode and the final image looks radioactive in the gif version. It's actually something inbetween both color saturations you see.

If anybody knows a solution for the screenshot problem let me know. >_<

1 Poster... in layers

Actually some layers seem to be missing in the screenshot... O_o *scratches head*
Anyways, that's a good way to show that Photoshop isn't always click and done and not everything can be fixed with one layer. Especially when it comes to 50% non-painted art, I found it very useful to carefully layer effects over each other instead of trying to stuff everything in one.
Since I've got the bad habit of NOT naming everything I can strongly advise to NOT follow my example. ;) It's pure madness but in the workflow I totally forget resulting in massive swearing afterwards.

If somebody wonders: I work with both the English (home studio) and German (studio) version. Results in pretty funny files.

If you shop half awake....

... you normally fail. I bought paper for my recent project and was half-aslepp I guess. Otherwise I can't explain why I bought rough Lanaquarelle paper whereas I wanted to buy Grain Satine. ARGGG!
Anyways, I guess I'll go shopping tomorrow again- spending even more money on ridiculous expensive paper BUT at least I know why I like Grain Satine more.
Lemme show :)

big image is big o_O
This is rough Lanaquarelle.... I think for normal watercolour illustrations it's totally fine. What I personally dislike about the paper is that pigments keep getting stuck in the surface texture.

For some people this might be "uhh.... artsy", for me it's "uh... crap!"
When I need to do details (a lot) it's like war on the paper. And if you work on 61 centimeters it's WWIII. Arf!
What you see is a mix of Gouache and Lukas watercolour.

In reality the colors look a bit dull. I'll keep telling myself it's the paper.

And now... Grand Satine. Gosh.. I love it.
To say it with a Despicable Me quote: "IT'S SO FLUFFY!" ;)
After the base dried you're able to add a lot of details.
Just let me say that you have to be very patient and let it dry 100%ly or else you might get nasty blotches.

But I love the surface and how fine you can work on it.when dry it looks wonderful.

I just have to find out how to get the clouds done but I guess I'll find out soon enough while working. You can't really copy the techniques you use while working with acrylics.
But hurray for white gouache.

While I write the two test sheets are finally dry and I can't stop stressing out that the rough paper looks totally odd. Very very very odd.

Arf again for failing in shopping.

painting is a crux.. if you´re german

I think I never gonna finish it... haha =_= the sketch has been hanging in my kitchen since September last year and still I think "I should do it" ... than some days later: "Na, wanna paint cute." Some days later: "Paint it!".... and so on.

I think i can say it openly and nobody´s gonna blame me for my very own personal point of view: some communities just suck.... and the problem is: Most are german. =_= I cannot understand why especially the german art-scene is excessively trying to force pros to produce better and better and better art even if you just wanna paint and relax.
It´s odd and especially the reasons aren´t any reasons at all. The main question is: Who do you paint for?
I don´t mean commercial art or art you have to do for a project but your very own fun-art. Those pieces you do if you wanna just paint. Would you like to get a comment like "Well, nice but you can do better."
Isn´t it unfair to say such a thing?

Some people say: You have to see both sides. Well, no... I can´t. There´s just one side: the one which says "Have fun". Community shouldn´t mean prison and pressure for things that might never come because they were never there. Too high expectations and frustrated artists: now that´s what I call a mess.

Is it just Germany or is it everywhere like that?

work at night

last year, around midnight
acrylics, canvas and lotsa coffee

colors

hello leaves...


mixing colors can be a real pain =_= I found dozens of green shades but not the one I really needed. I hope the mix won´t dry out before I am finished with all illustrations. Raaaaaahh!


hello colors. You mess up my workspace, you know that?