6 Days Until Comic Con 2008

I mentioned that I wanted to show some of my work in a previous post. After looking and looking, I realized that I didn't have any illustrations in digital format that were readily available - Ever since I switched my focus to doing photography full time, I have nothing but photos! So instead, I went ahead and fired up Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and did this quick and dirty sketch of Hellboy. I only spent less than 5 minutes on it so it is by no means complete. I just didn't want you guys to say that I didn't share any of my own illustrations with you...

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro is a great little program that turns your computer into a virtual sketchpad. Unlike Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, it has a very simple interface and first time users will not be daunted. It's easy to use and is a lot of fun. If you are a heavy Photoshop or Illustrator user, the first thing that you are going to need to adjust to is the lack of layers. There are no layers in this program. You simply have a big blank white space, a tools menu that give you a choice between pens, pencils, brushes, and airbrushes, a color palette, and a brush resize tool.

This application is meant to be used with a pen tablet and takes full advantage of your pen tablet's pressure sensitivity. The harder you press down on your pen tablet, the thicker and darker your line becomes. That's the biggest learning curve - using the pen tablet. You can quickly get over not having any layers but you need to spend some time re-adjusting your hand-eye coordination. Unlike an actual sketchbook where you are looking at it and you know exactly where the tip of your pencil is, this app has you staring at your screen while your hand is placed onto of your pen tablet's tablet on top of your desk (or in my case, on my lap). Once you get the hang of drawing this way, it becomes really easy to sketch just about anything you want. If you make a mistake, flip the pen tablet's pen on its "eraser" end and erase your mistakes. Once you've drawn your guide lines, you can start fleshing it out with the airbrush, markers, or paint brushes and contrary to what my sketch depicts, you can do so in color - I opted for a black and white sketch that I imported into Photoshop and added a slightly red tint to.

If you get a chance to play with this app, do so! It's a lot of fun.