illustration
I made it into ImagineFX
Wow, I made it into the FXPose section of July’s edition of ImagineFX magazine. It’s really a dream come true for me, I’ve been a fan of the magazine since it started over ten years ago. This was my second attempt, I posted work in March last year but it didn’t get accepted. Looking back I’m not surprised, I feel myself that my work had yet to come together at that time.
I well as the very welcome exposure for my work, it allows me to be objective about the images I create. When I changed from animation to illustration/art I thought my work might retain some fragment of movement or a trace of ‘cartoon’ atheistic however I think it’s the opposite, my artwork has a stillness, a moment of action frozen. I also realised I like to add a lot of detail to my work, something that wasn’t possible in my animation. This is not because I want it to be photographic but rather I want to try to make the surreal, fantasy, elements as real as possible.
The Next Generation of Digital Drawing Tools
The next generation of digital drawing tools…. is the theme music to star trek the next generation playing in your head, it is in mine.
This is my current digital workspace consisting of:
Chillblast PC running windows 10, Quad core i7, 18GB RAM
Wacom Intuos Pro Large
Dual QHD monitors running a single desktop
Epson WF-7515 A3 printer and scanner
It’s set up designed for my particular way of working; at a desk with a desktop set up using full 64 bit drawing applications, at the moment entirely using Clip Studio Pro (terrible name great software) and the largest amount of physical screen space I can get. I’m also Windows based… this is not an anti Apple rant in any way, I have an I pad and have drawn sketches on it, it’s great but I’ve always used windows.
I’ve been contemplating upgrading my digital drawing equipment for ages now. There’s nothing lacking in my current setup, it works really well for me, loads of screen real estate which I like to keep my work loose and fast. My PC, “The Beast”, is a real veteran now having been through three versions of windows and one RAM upgrade. It’s still utterly reliable and powerful enough for my needs (I’ve even animated, edited, sound mixed and rendered a 10 minute animated film on it). However now on its seventh year the hard disks are slow and an upgrade machine is on the cards. Also I’m still using the Wacom Intuos system, which I’ve used regularly for the past 20 years, wow how time flies. It’s a great low cost digital drawing system, which apart from getting used to the disconnect of drawing on one surface while looking at the screen, (which is easy when you get used to it) is excellent . However I’ve been keenly following the massive progress in digital drawing technology in the last few years and since I work entirely digitally, I really want to embrace a completely new digital drawing system. But which system to go for.
The choices that have attracted my interest are:
Wacom Cintiq 27 QHD
Wacom Cintiq Pro
Wacom Mobile Studio
Microsoft Surface Studio
Dell Canvas
I’ve read up every bit of news and watched every video I can find about these devices but as most of us would, I really need to physically try these devices for myself.
Then suddenly I had my chance when I attended the photography show at the NEC in Birmingham, where Wacom was demoing their full range of devices. I was hoping Microsoft would be attending so I could see the rare, elusive creature known as the Surface Studio but there was no stall shown on the list of attendees. So we went to the show and grabbed lunch before setting off to the Wacom stall, however as we passed the Adobe Arena my wife spotted something. Set up on a small desk was a chap in a Microsoft tee shirt, he had just arrived and was showing off one of the three demo surface studios in the UK. I tried drawing on it using Photoshop, just scribbling away on a blank document.
Surface Studio; The verdict (based on 10 minutes of doodling):
It’s a really nice experience to interact with the surface studio, I was able to grab the document I was drawing on and turn it with my fingers as if it was a physical piece of paper and then continue to draw. It was smooth and the palm rejection was excellent. The touchscreen interaction was also fantastic, I could click around the menus and tools within Photoshop with ease, the touch was crisp and responsive.
The pen was good, I’m used to Wacom pens so from the brief time I had they seemed to feel about the same. However to really get the best out of any drawing pen, you need to adjust the settings of the tools in the software you use to get the effect you are most happy with. To really test the surface pen system I would need to use Clip Studio Paint with my own preset brushes, with my custom pressure settings. There was one strange issue with the surface pen system, which I’ve also noticed when I tried the Surface Pro, the tool icon tends to drift a few centimetres from the tip of the pen. It gives a slightly distracting sense of parallax, I’m wondering if the tool tip icon can be adjusted or turned off altogether?
The screen quality is excellent and so is the gravity hinge, the lowest screen position 20 degrees, which is designed for drawing is just right for me. With the screen in this position touchscreen comes into its own, you are physically close to the screen and it feels natural to navigate using your fingers. Also the format of the screen, the squarer shape as opposed to the usual widescreen used by most other on screen systems is, for digital artists like me very welcome, since I do almost all my work in a portrait screen position. There is a lot of buzz around the surface studio and from my brief play with it, I can see why. Having an all in one digital desktop drawing desk/touch screen computer is exactly what digital artists have been looking for. There are downsides to the surface studio, the price is substantial and some tech reviews have been critical of the hardware choices used in its build, considering the performance demands of 3D and video editing. I only really work in 2D with still images, so I would like to try the surface studio again when it’s launched in the UK and see if it can deal with large layered art work files using the pen and touch.
It was off to the Wacom stall next.
Firstly I tried a Mobile Studio with a 13 inch screen and built in windows pc. I was really impressed with the quality of the drawing. I was using Photoshop and I picked a standard brush set to black. The line I drew felt like a brand new expensive ink pen on crisp drawing paper, the digital ink seemed to flow from the nib of the pen. The screen was clear, the system responsive and the touch was very good.
Next I tried the Cintiq pro 13, which plugs into an external computer. Again this was a really good drawing experience, the pressure sensitivity felt just like a physical pen.
However my issue with these two devices is the size of the working area. As I’ve said I work at a desk with big screens whereas these devices are designed to be portable, that said with the menu windows open, it felt like I was drawing on a post-it note unless I zoomed in. Unfortunately the 16 inch option in both machines wasn’t available so I couldn’t compare it, I would like to try them to see if the larger screen might work for me.
Next I tried the Cintiq 27 QHD touch, this was something I had considered getting before.
Sorry Wacom, I really love your products and I’m a long time user but…. I not sure about the 27 QHD touch. What had firstly put me off about it before I even tried it was the 16:9 widescreen, previously I couldn’t find a stand that would allow me to have it in portrait position. That was untill I discovered a video on Youtube by artist Lawrence Mann who has mounted the Cintiq on an Ergotron Desk Mount Arm which allows the Cintiq to be swivelled around from landscape to portrait:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XWPoKdcfo
It seemed it was all systems go then but when I tried the Cintiq I wasn’t massively excited. Firstly the touch is not great, it’s really unfair to compare it with the touch capabilities of the brand new surface studio but the studio beats it hands down. The drawing experience was very good but for me, not as exciting as the Mobile Studio or the Cintiq pro but again to be fair it is an older product line. The bottom line is that costing at least £2000 including the Ergotron arm I think I’d rather wait.
The other major player on the digital drawing tablet market is the Dells Canvas which is a 16:9 format screen like the Wacom Cintiq but thinner. Not having been launched yet there’s not a lot of information available but I would like to try a demo version when it is around.
So at the moment I’ll be continuing with my current, highly efficient, if not cutting edge setup and wait to see what happens next. The surface studio has no European launch date as yet and I’m also waiting to see what Wacom will bring out next; a new 21 or 27 inch 4k Cintiq … with a PC built in perhaps… whatever happens, it’s exciting times for creative technology.
Ghost Madness
or how I create stuff.
At the start of this year I entered the Folio society book Illustration competition. The competition was to illustrate three different short ghost stories, one of which was The Treasure of Abbot Thomas by M.R. James, one of the great ghost story writers. The golden rule with illustrating a text is to read the story and then identify a particular part of which inspires a vivid image in your head. I found this line did it for me;
‘I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it,’
I found the idea of a horrible ghostly face pressing against the protagonists face a striking visual image, the horror for me, came from this unwanted intimate contact with a foul creature. What is worse is this scene takes place in a confined space, inside a well, at night.
So with text chosen I started sketching out the image. I work completely digitally and I will start sketching directly in Manga Studio, in black and white and work up the image to completion in Manga Studio. The reason for doing this is I have complete freedom to erase things, to cut and paste parts of the image and to quickly block in with areas of tone. This approach works for me because sometimes I have an image in my head which I then try to ‘shape’ on the screen but on other occasions I’m not sure what I want and through experimenting on the computer, an image ‘evolves’.
With this illustration I had a strong image from the text of the man’s facing touching the face of the ghostly presence. Here are my first three roughs;
There was also a mention of tentacles in the next line, so I included them. So far ok, but because it is all to do with the characters facial reaction and the horror he feels I decided to stop doing roughs and work on his expression. I found some models of older men from my collection of photo reference books and created this…
I liked the character I came up with so I cut and pasted him into a composition with the ghost.
The big problem with this approach was that the character I had designed in isolation didn’t quite look right when placed in the composition, he wasn’t looking at the ghost who appears from a hole in the wall of the well when the hero finds the hidden treasure.
So I scrapped the background and started on a new ghost. But the character wasn’t working for me now, there was no sense from his expression that he was utterly terrified. So I started again and created a new character, again based on photo reference.
I liked the face but the angle was wrong.
I tried a completely new composition…
This was working so I worked it up, adding colour.
Tech note, I added the colour using colour adjustment layers, mainly set to Overlay. This feature will be familiar to users of Photoshop but they have been available in Manga Studio since version 5.
I liked the composition, the ghost is not clearly described in the text so I was going with a faceless presence kind of thing. I wasn’t happy with it, the character was younger than I imagined (my wife said it reminded her of Doctor Who), so it was back to the drawing board.
I was happy with the composition so far so I just redesigned the hero and ghost… again.
It was working for me and the Edwardian setting of the story was coming through. But the facial expression was not communicating terror so ….
The gritted teeth went.
Guess what, I wasn’t satisfied and started the whole thing again from scratch. It was both the expression of the character and the design of the ghost that wasn’t working, the shapeless mass idea was not coming through.
On this attempt I used reference photos of an ape’s skull for the ghost and included a hand on the human character to add more context. Oh hang on now it looks like they are having a smooch!
Here we go again… I changed the human character completely and worked into the ghost skull character to make it more of a face.
It was working so I added into it.
Then I added colour (maybe it should have stayed in black and white but I thought it might look too obvious for a ghost story).
I felt is was working but needed something more, so I added a hand to the ghost.
When I reached this point two things occurred to me, one the human victim looked creepier than the ghost and two, this was much more important, I had created this finished piece…. WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE SIZE GUIDE! The idea of the competition is that the winner is commissioned to illustrate the rest of the actual book, therefore the guidelines state that the images must be portrait format and must be in the size ratio supplied in the rules. I had ignored this pretty much and my image was far too wide!!!! There is an important lesson here, always use a size guide when a certain size is requested. Paste it into your working file if you work digitally or cut out a paper frame if you work on paper/canvas etc.
THEN I HAD AN IDEA. I’ll turn the human character from the last image into the ghost, this will give him a more solid look, more relatable. For the human character I found a face in a reference book. Note the size guide has appeared in my work file. 
This is the image with the previous human character, ghostified and pasted in as black and white line next to my new human character. Now it was working for me, it had that intimate horror feel I was aiming for.
I added a less intense and more limited colour palette, also I was adjusting the composition to fit in with the size/proportion guide.
Finally I was happy with the result.
Looking back I’m shocked at how many attempts I’d made at this illustration. There is probably a clear lesson here. I should have created far more initial sketches, different composition ideas, perhaps don’t focus on the faces alone, do more of the figures, express the horror through body pose maybe, even choose a different part of the story to illustrate. I would have suggested all those options if I was giving someone else advice, but I didn’t do that. I got obsessed by expressing that one line and the image it inspired. I don’t know if that’s a good thing to do but I enjoyed the journey. The other two illustrations plus the cover design are on the gallery page of my blog. I didn’t get on the shortlist for the competition in the end, but I learned a hell of a lot doing those illustrations.
Neil Andrew Webber 